


ghosts in the machine

by publunchesownmyass



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:06:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/publunchesownmyass/pseuds/publunchesownmyass
Summary: It shouldn’t be a surprise when Eren kisses him. Shouldn’t be a surprise when Levi finds himself abandoning all last shreds of pretence and returning it with fervour. It shouldn’t be, because of all the unspoken admissions that have been left to develop between them for so long, the weighty tension and unsatisfyingly perpetual prospect of more. Somehow, it still is.Levi and Eren have three weeks to figure themselves out. Manga Spoilers up to Chap 105.
Relationships: Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 53
Kudos: 181





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> did not intend to be back on the fan fiction grind ?? but I had to indulge isayama’s confirmation of levi being uncharacteristically clumsy with romance, somehow. 
> 
> some things to go into this with: i diverged from canon slightly to simplify things so imagine that the airship's destination was a temporary base. quite a bit of this is some form of character study so bear with it at certain points. + just roll w the unrealistic timespan.

He can’t sleep well on the best of nights and especially not now, not with Eren back and brooding in the dungeons below. 

Levi rolls over, nestling deeper into the warmth of his blankets. Still, sleep evades him. 

The mission had been a fucking catastrophe, as far as he was concerned. So much - _too_ much, in the end - had been left up to chance, the whole plan fraught with danger and factors too unpredictable to fully prepare for. And all they’d had to trust was Eren and his fucking _letters_ , blindly running in to save him - him, the very person who had betrayed them - like a pack of mindlessly loyal mutts.

He huffs out a breath of air and it hangs grimly over him in the silence of the night. 

Had it been worth it? The countless fatalities on both ends, the devastation and destruction they’d left behind, the lives they’d reduced to shreds? 

All to retrieve Eren so he can carry out whatever plan he’s come up with this time. 

Levi clenches his jaw, stomach twisting uncomfortably as he remembers Sasha. He knows what that kind of grief feels like, has had to face it many, many times, but, even after all these years, nothing can ever come close to preparing him for that initial shock. And still, all for Eren. 

Swallowing down the lump rising in his throat, he shrugs off the blankets, shivering slightly into the cool air. 

Hanji can provide them with gratuitous amounts of premium liquor and yet apparently their budget can’t extend to decent heating. A worrying order of priorities in Levi’s opinion, but then again it’s Hanji and the 104th Cadet Corps so perhaps, at this point, he shouldn’t really be surprised. 

His joints grind in protest as he gets up - a persistent reminder of the exertion of the past few days - but he doesn’t retreat back to bed just yet and makes his way over to his desk instead. 

Smartly stacked paperwork perches in the very middle, his pencil placed directly adjacent to the sheets should he attempt to deal with any of it, and the only other space is occupied by a once ornate but now rather sad looking tea tray. Thankfully the pot he had boiled a few hours earlier is still at an acceptable temperature and he pours it into a fresh cup, watching distantly as the tea leaves curl together beneath the water. 

Unbidden thoughts of Eren drift to the forefront of his mind and he looks up, a futile attempt to halt them, and out of the window to the clear night sky. 

As he watches, wisps of clouds obscure the moon and the silvery-grey grounds below are darkened. 

As soon as they had arrived on the safety of the airship, Eren had looked so empty, so utterly defeated that it was as if he was merely the shell of the person he used to be. 

_Just like every rotting piece of shit I saw in the Underground...I never thought I’d see you like this._

His words from two days ago circle back to him and he clenches his fist against the edge of his desk in a fruitless attempt to suppress his anger. But it’s true. Levi had never expected to see him in that state and perhaps that’s what had made it hurt all the more. 

It had unnerved him. All the fight seemed to have been drained from Eren, as if he was nothing more than a vessel for other people’s memories and ghosts of the future. And, of all people, Levi had been so certain that Eren would always have fight left inside of him. 

The creaking of wooden floorboards in the room behind startles him out of his sombre thoughts and he turns quickly, mind jumping to _traitors_ and _Marley_ and _soldiers_. 

But it’s just Eren, leaning against the wall opposite him with a distantly troubled expression. Well. Not exactly ‘just’, considering Eren is arguably the most dangerous person with them and, last time Levi checked, meant to be locked away three floors below. 

“Eren.” 

He regards him for a moment and silently thanks Sina that Eren had had enough sense to wash himself and tie his hair up before coming here. 

It’s something, at least, Levi thinks begrudgingly, because he may have been unable to stop himself from strangling him if he hadn't. 

He doesn’t say anything and Levi turns back around, grabbing a teaspoon and stirring the steaming liquid in his cup as he waits. 

“You don’t seem surprised to see me here,” Eren notes after a long silence. 

“Yeah, well. You have a habit of turning up in places nobody wants you to be.” He lifts one shoulder in the shadow of a shrug and leans back against his desk to face him. 

Eren doesn’t rise to the taunt but his gaze flits over him, uncomfortably sharp, and Levi schools his face into a familiarly impassive expression. This Eren has an unsettling way of getting under his skin and making Levi question if he has the upperhand, something he had never had to worry about before. 

“You’ve really fucked everything up, then.” 

Eren laughs, devoid of humour, and Levi just looks at him, a faint feeling of disgust settling in his stomach. 

“Never one to beat around the bush, were you, Captain?” He uses the term with a measured amount of bitter scorn. “But I disagree.” 

“I see. I expect it all worked out how you wanted.” 

“More or less. I expected everyone to hate me, of course, but…” 

If Levi was a nicer man, if he’d been made of the kind of stuff that perhaps Armin was or Sasha had been, then maybe he would have relented - just slightly - at the unexpectedly evident vulnerability of Eren’s words. As it is, the wounds from two days before are still so open and he’s not a fucking saint and, right now, he _hates_ Eren with everything he damn well has. 

“What did you want, a fucking tea party?” 

His words slice through the silence, harsh and cold just as he had intended, and Levi makes sure his expression remains carefully indifferent when Eren looks at him. To his credit, he recovers well. 

“I think that would be slightly inappropriate, Levi, considering I killed Sasha,” he says matter-of-factly, holding his gaze until Levi has to look away. 

“Tch.” 

He doesn’t bother correcting him; if Eren wants to believe he was a direct factor in Sasha’s death, then he damn well can. Levi hopes he drowns in it. 

The night stretches between them and he can feel Eren’s unwavering gaze on the side of his face. He refuses to look back at him. 

“How did you escape, anyway?” Levi asks irritably, once the quiet has become unbearable and it’s clear that Eren won’t speak. 

“I ate the War Hammer Titan,” he says after a moment. “I could escape from here anytime I want to.” 

The words sound childish in Levi’s ears but he supposes it’s the truth, no matter which way you put it. 

“I see.” He sips his tea. It’s cold. Fucking hell. 

“Are you injured?” Eren asks suddenly and it’s- the question catches Levi off guard, is the thing, because it’s said with such genuine sounding concern, as if he really cares about what happens to him. 

Levi forces himself to remember that that’s just how good an actor Eren is. 

“Why do you care?” He snaps, breaking his gaze that has been determinedly fixed away from him. It comes out more sharply than he had intended it to. 

Eren simply surveys him with that annoyingly fucking expressionless gaze and, for the first time since he got back, Levi allows himself to really look at him. 

He’s grown into himself, he realises, standing strong with properly developed muscle and broader shoulders. He’s shot up to a strapping six foot, depressingly taller than him, even now with his back leaning against the wall as if he has all the time in the world. His voice is deeper than Levi remembers. His face has changed too, growing out of it’s boyish shape and into defined cheekbones, a strong jaw, heavy eyes. And his hair, of course. Levi eyes that particular abomination with distaste. 

He lets himself meet Eren’s gaze again, partly resigned, only to find that he’s not ceased in his incessant staring all this time. 

“Because I want to know if you’re hurt.” 

This time, Levi doesn’t look away. But he’s tired, damn it, and Eren’s being so fucking cryptic and Levi wants to hate him, thinks maybe he does, but it makes it so much harder to when he goes and looks at him in that way, asks him sincere things like that. As if the answer isn’t obvious, anyway. 

“Don’t say shit like that.” 

Is what he lamely ends up saying and he places his cup on his desk with a finality that lets anyone know that the conversation is over. Only this isn’t anyone; it’s Eren and he ignores it. 

“Why not?” He presses on, and Levi briefly wonders if he’s trying to make him say it or really is just that lacking in common sense, before he’s pointing out, “You didn’t use a coaster. Sir.” 

“Wh- oh.” Levi scowls down at his cup and considers leaving it there out of an inane desire to avoid doing anything Eren says ever but ultimately decides against it; he’s not inclined to ruin a whole fucking desk for that piece of shit. 

“Here.” 

Eren appears behind him (is it an undiscovered Titan ability that enables him to move so fast? Levi makes a mental note to tell Hanji. They’d have a field day) and holds out one of Levi’s round coasters. 

He stares at it for a long time, feeling Eren staring at him in turn, and gets the distinct notion that he is uncannily aware of the internal battle that Levi is currently fighting for his damn life in. 

“Thanks,” he eventually mutters begrudgingly and slides the coaster beneath the cup. 

“You’re welcome.” His breath is warm against the back of Levi’s neck.

He suppresses a shiver, wonders how Eren is so close to him now, and waits for him to move. He doesn’t. 

Levi becomes acutely aware of the space - or rather, lack thereof - between them, how Eren is practically caging him against the window, how Levi would only have to take half a step back and he’d be pressed against his chest. His scowl deepens. 

It’s not like- he isn’t- Levi’s not fucking emotionally stunted. 

He’s perfectly aware that his feelings for Eren stretch far beyond platonic. But neither does he wish to think of them as romantic. It’s always so difficult, always such a push and pull between the two, to the point where Levi gave up years ago. 

He’s sure of one thing and that’s that he refuses to pursue the feelings, whatever they may be. Before, it was - to name a few of _many_ \- because Eren was young and his subordinate and they just weren't compatible, really.

Now...Eren’s certainly matured, to the point where even Levi can admit that labelling him a child would be far too patronising, and he isn’t exactly his subordinate anymore (the mocking tone in which Eren had called him Captain is evidence enough) and perhaps, in some ways, they’re more similar these days, as much as Levi hates to admit it. 

But Eren is different. He’s not the boy who he once kicked around in a courtroom. He’s a man now but, beyond that, he’s a stranger. 

Which makes it all the more confusing for Levi because these feelings haven’t fucking left and yet the man in question is so utterly foreign to him now. 

He grits his teeth, shouldering past Eren with more force than necessary, and strides to the furthest corner away from him before settling there. 

Eren just watches him, still standing where he shoved him away, and it infuriates Levi further that he doesn’t even fucking react to anything anymore. 

That used to be all he _did_ ; a hard-headed teenager who had been through horrors well beyond his years, consumed by the unyielding ambition to slaughter every last Titan, too much hope and too little self-restraint. 

Always fighting - _always_ fucking fighting - with Titans, with his comrades, with Jean, with Levi himself. He supposes that he should have known it was all too much, that Eren and his hopes blazed so brightly they would burn themselves out, in the end. 

Even he had placed his beliefs in Eren, watching as he killed Titan after Titan, as he transformed so spectacularly; Levi had hoped - naively perhaps, but hoped nonetheless. 

But it’s all gone to shit and these days Eren doesn’t look like he’s capable of feeling any emotion that isn’t a deep, distant anger so it’s all a bit of a moot point now, anyway. 

“Hey,” Levi calls out to him, deciding they may as well engage in some useful conversation now that they’re both here. “What’s your plan now?” 

“My plan now?” 

A flicker of confusion passes over his face and Levi restrains himself from going over there and slamming Eren’s head against the wall just to rattle the few fucking brain cells inside it, with immense difficulty. 

“Yeah. I doubt you’re intending on rotting to death in your cell here. Unfortunately.” 

Levi watches with some trepidation for his neatly piled paperwork as Eren leans against his desk, one big hand splaying out across the corner. 

“Oh.” He frowns for a moment, as if he hadn’t even considered it. Then he looks back over at him. “I’ll leave here soon. I need to take care of a few things first but I’ll be gone by the end of this month, at the latest.” 

“I see.” 

Levi isn’t sure what he expected to hear. It’s still strange to him - having to carefully regard Eren as an enemy after so many years spent learning to trust him as a comrade. Having to accept that now Eren has plans that Levi isn’t a part of. 

The silence swells once more. He wonders how long it’s been since Eren arrived. If anyone’s noticed the empty cell below. 

“Levi?” 

He looks at Eren then, can’t _not_ , and feels his stomach clench at the sudden strength in his gaze. 

“Did you get my letters?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically quiet, as his fingers trace over his desk. 

Levi swallows hard, glancing down to avoid Eren’s eyes. 

Of course, he’d had a creeping feeling that Eren would reference them sooner or later. 

He’d hoped he wouldn’t; Levi’s so mortifyingly incompetent at things like this and that’s probably only been exacerbated by his disturbing lack of experience.

His skills lie on the battleground, in making necessary decisions without vacillating, in unflinchingly leading his squad into what could easily be their deaths. He’s blunt, disdainful, not above belittling his foes, unapproachable enough to keep most at bay. That’s what he’s accustomed to for that is what he is. 

Between his general unsociability and frequent battles that take up a significant chunk of his time, any romantic opportunities have been pretty thin on the ground. Practically just the ground, actually. 

Consequently, with things like this - with _Eren_ \- Levi is far removed from his comfort zone. Fucking hell, he can’t even see his comfort zone, that’s how far out he is. 

So he’ll blame it on that, on his permanently handicapped social skills and clumsy attempts to claw his way back into safer waters, when he answers Eren’s question. Or rather, avoids it with every last will that he has. 

“Obviously. Or we would have received several dismembered chunks of your body by now.” 

Levi crosses his arms over his chest, lowers his brow into a disinterested expression, and leans further into the shadow that is conveniently cast over the corner he’s skulking in. 

Eren raises an eyebrow but, apart from that, doesn’t seem too perturbed. 

“I was talking about the letters addressed only to you.” 

His eyes never leave Levi as he pushes himself off the desk and begins walking towards him with measured steps. The unspoken _and I think you knew that_ is clear. 

Feeling more and more like he’s inadvertently cornered himself with every step closer, Levi clenches his fist tightly by his side. He isn’t used to this. He doesn’t have any automatic fight or flight response here. 

Well. Theoretically, the instinctive slashing of blades to the nape would certainly provide him with an efficient escape, but then Levi would have to drag Eren’s body to Hanji and explain to them how he had had to kill Humanity’s Last Hope in order to stop him coming onto him as he’s incapable of handling that kind of situation. 

_Tch,_ he thinks. _It would be so very degrading._

Swallowing, he watches as Eren stops right in front of him, two small steps away from pressing him up against the wall behind. It looks as though he may have to make a run for it. _But to where?_ he ponders. 

“Levi. Did you get them? I’m certain Falco delivered both the envelopes each time but maybe, if the postal service fucked it up…”

Eren tails off and he’s so close to him now that Levi has to look up to maintain eye contact.

 _He’s giving him an out,_ Levi realises. Eren is silently asking him if he wants to talk about it - no, more than that, if he will _ever_ want to talk about it. The action surprises him more than it should. 

_Take the out,_ Levi begs himself, _take the weak fucking excuse and leave._

It would make his life a whole lot easier and there’s nothing they’ll be able to do anyway - it’s not as though this, whatever it is, has a future. Hell, it barely has a past either. Just a long history of things left unsaid. 

They’re not even- Eren’s a fucking war criminal now. Besides, even if it did somehow work out (ignoring the abundance of reasons it couldn’t), Levi isn’t the kind of person who gets to have things like that. 

This is for people like Historia and Armin and even Jean, probably. It’s for young people. For people with enough to give-

“Stop over thinking it.” Eren’s even closer now. Levi shivers. 

_Right. He’s not asking you to do anything, you dolt,_ he reminds himself, letting out a shaky breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding in. Eren’s bare chest is inches away from his face. 

All he’s asking is if he received the letters. 

Beneath that, he’s giving Levi the choice to end things before they start, to let Eren - the only person who he has ever (despite his best efforts not to) thought he could, perhaps, one day, if fate allowed it - leave here by the end of this month and continue with whatever it is that he plans to do without their relationship ever changing. 

_He’ll leave anyway_ , Levi thinks bitterly. _What difference would it make?_

He knows, though, that if he uses the excuse and Eren retreats back into his empty shell and leaves them all in three weeks for what could easily be a fucking suicide mission that gets everyone killed...then being honest right now could make all the difference in the world.

And, well. Levi’s never been one to shoot himself in the foot. 

“Yeah,” he answers honestly, and it comes out quieter than he intended it too. He coughs and tries again. “Yeah. I got them.” 

He avoids looking at Eren’s face until he can’t and then he glances up at him, fingers trembling slightly at his sides until he curls his hands into fists. 

For the first time since Levi’s seen him, Eren isn’t wearing that painfully vacant expression. It startles him, seeing this Eren without that, so much so that he finds himself unable to look away, eyes flickering over every aspect of his face as if he needs to memorise it. 

It’s not happiness, exactly, just hints of it hidden away in certain features. 

His eyes look at Levi with a distinct softness in them, eyebrows slightly raised in a pleased brand of surprise, the telltale shadow of a dimple in his left cheek gives away the ghost of a smile; it’s all tiny, slight shifts that change his face like the grains of sand they found on the beach that day. 

Levi schools his own face into a scowl, pushes past Eren for the second time that night and strides over to his desk to pour himself another cup of tea. 

“I don’t know what you’re so pleased about. You gave away my name. Our whereabouts. Doubled the chances of getting yourself killed.” 

The pot only has a few feeble drops of water left to give and Levi swears under his breath. Damn it all. 

“Did you read them?” 

Levi looks at Eren so fast that it’s a wonder he doesn’t get whiplash. 

“What?” 

“I asked if you received them. You said you did. So now, I want to know if you read them,” Eren repeats, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms across his chest, looking at Levi with a hard expression. 

He stares back at him, unable to fathom how Eren is focusing on that out of all the things he’s just pointed out. He’s always had an annoyingly one-track mind. 

“I did,” answers Levi shortly before promptly turning around and busying himself with his empty cup. 

“And?” 

Horrible. Levi is so mortifyingly, unbelievably horrible at this. 

He thinks he may die, right here, unsuccessfully trying to distract them both with an empty teapot as Eren Jaeger questions him on letters that were of a decidedly different nature to the letters they received as a squad. 

So perhaps it’s his swiftly approaching death, or sudden dehydration, or insanity or something that drives him to say what he says next. 

“And I...enjoyed them.” 

Levi barely has time to register what he’s just said, to think _wait what?? what??_ , before he’s closed his mouth and the words are hanging in the air between them and all that’s left is for the dust to settle. The silence is so loud it’s painful. 

“Right,” says Eren at last, drawing the word out in a voice thick with sarcasm. “You enjoyed them. You know, when I wrote them I didn’t exactly intend them as some light bedtime reading.” 

Levi fights against an unfamiliar flush of embarrassment.

“I know that,” he all but growls, tightening his fist until he feels nails digging into his palm. 

Neither of them speak for a few seconds and Levi wishes Eren would stop surveying him for one fucking moment. Being the subject of his gaze feels all at once too much. 

“You’re really out of your element here, aren’t you?” Eren remarks eventually and he sounds so fucking amused that Levi just _snaps_. 

Curls his hands out of fists only to curl them back in again. 

Strides towards Eren with resumed confidence and shoves him hard against the wall, one arm held strong against his throat, the other pinning him in place. 

“Yes, I fucking _am_ out of my element, Jaeger,” Levi glares up at him and hopes Eren can feel every scorching stroke of hatred he has for him. 

“It isn’t everyday that a fucking _war_ criminal,” he emphasises the word by a swift shove to Eren’s throat with the arm over it, “breaks into my _quarters,_ ” another shove, punctuated when he yanks Eren forward with two fingers curled into his belt loops only to push him back, hard, against the wall, “acts like the arrogant son of a bitch he’s come to be and questions me about the many things he admitted over fucking _letters_ instead of telling me when he had the _chance,”_ shoves at Eren’s throat so hard he can feel it’s movement with every shallow breath passing through, “because all he is is a fucking coward-” 

And then - Levi doesn’t quite know how it happens - but suddenly his back is flat against the wall, head slamming against it with a sickening crunch. 

Eren is holding both of his wrists above his head in one of his big fucking hands, the other pressed with the palm level against the brick as if to cage him in completely. 

_It’s a good thing Eren doesn’t get turned on by this sort of stuff,_ Levi thinks dully to himself as he feels him press his hands further into the wall. _He has enough worrying qualities as it is._

“You’re not as strong as you used to be,” Eren tells him, frowning slightly as if it troubles him. 

“Why do you care?” Levi grits his teeth, struggling momentarily against his grip before giving up with a frustrated sigh. _Best not to waste energy futilely._ Quiet falls between them. 

“You’re right,” says Eren suddenly, voice apathetic. “I don’t know why I do.” 

Levi stares up at him and the only warning he gets is the hand on the wall disappearing from his peripheral vision, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, before it’s drawn back and Eren punches him. Hard. 

Pain explodes in his stomach at the feeling of strong knuckles striking the flesh there and he gasps involuntarily, completely winded, and doubles over only for Eren to hold him firmly in place by his wrists. 

It subsides after a moment, shock and adrenaline numbing it away, but Levi feels anger tighten his chest. 

Swallowing hard, he glares at him with every last ounce of loathing that he possesses, eyes watering slightly from the unexpected blow. Eren only looks back, face torn somewhere between amusement and indifference. 

“I’m not a coward.” Eren’s expression shifts darker and he glowers down at him, leaning closer until Levi can feel the inhuman heat radiating off of him. “The only coward here is you.” 

Eren gives him no more time to recover; pulls him away from the wall with a hand wound tight in his shirt - Levi braces himself for the impact he knows is coming - before slamming him back against it with enough force to send him through it. 

Cold, hard brick smashes against his skull and Levi grits his teeth against the agony that erupts through his spine, the back of his neck, his tailbone, the crown of his head. 

Bright ribbons of light explode in front of his eyes and he swallows again, blood pounding in his ears. The back of his head throbs in pain. 

“Elaborate, Jaeger.” Levi snarls the words out, giving himself a second to blink away the stars dancing in his vision, before striking Eren swiftly in the stomach with one knee. 

He feels his bone smash into tough muscle with precision that could only come from years of practice. 

He caves downward, a gasp of pain leaving his mouth, but, to his credit, doesn’t relinquish his grip on Levi’s wrists.

He tries to take advantage of Eren’s momentary lapse in concentration; brings up his leg to kick him again - this time, aiming for somewhere more sensitive, primarily the nose but a sudden shattering blow to the jaw might do - but Eren grabs his hips with his free hand, slamming them back against the wall and pinning him there. 

They’re both breathing hard, chests rising and falling heavily, each inhale and exhale loud in the otherwise silent night. Levi doesn’t stop glaring and Eren doesn’t loosen his grip. 

_“Elaborate,”_ he repeats sharply, once the blood has stopped pounding in his ears and he can hear his surroundings again. 

“I’m not a fucking coward,” Eren spits out, voice shaking with barely suppressed anger, and Levi narrows his eyes. 

“Everything you said in the letters - all of it...you saw me every fucking day, Jaeger. You were weak and afraid of rejection and it took you a whole fucking mission to work up the courage to tell me, that-” 

Something he says must unleash a new wave of fury in Eren because he jerks Levi so hard that his head cracks against the wall again and the pain there doubles, throbbing furiously. 

Levi grits his teeth against it for a second time and presses on just to provoke Eren further. 

“That sounds like fucking cowardice to me!” He pants out, voice strained. Eren’s glare dissolves and his eyes shutter and Levi knows he’s won. “You’re the only coward here, Eren. And you know it.” 

He exhales deeply, and, watching Eren, feels the anger drain from his veins as though somebody’s drawing it slowly out. 

He waits for him to loosen his hold on him and wonders if winning has ever felt so bitterly satisfying. Silence falls between them, punctured by the last of heavy breaths and for a long while, that’s all he can hear. 

“No.” Eren’s voice is so rough that for a moment Levi thinks that somebody else has slipped, unnoticed, into the room. “You’re wrong.” 

Levi’s stomach clenches. “Eren.” 

“You’re wrong, Levi.” Eren looks down at him, undefeated. “You’re wrong because I was the only one of us who has ever had the courage to admit it in the first place. I was the only one of who gave us a chance and made the effort and fucking _tried-”_

Eren’s voice has risen in volume with each passing word and Levi is suddenly grateful for requesting quarters in a secluded wing. But his words beat a tattoo inside his head, makes his pulse jump sickeningly against the fine skin on the inside of his wrist. 

He feels faintly ill but can’t seem to move, can’t seem to _breathe,_ staying motionless as though Eren’s very words are keeping him in place. 

“Eren, don’t-” 

“You saw me every day too, remember! You were afraid of rejection too - Levi, you were weaker than I was,” Eren throws out each word and Levi feels every one like it’s a punch, like bloodied knuckles are smashing against bone. 

“I’m serious, Eren, shut up, shut the fuck up-” His voice is ragged. Blood rushes to his head so fast he feels slightly dizzy with it. 

“You don’t have any fucking right to stand there and call me a coward for doing something you could never have done,” he talks over him, hard fury lining his his words as he spits them out with an anger Levi’s never seen on him before, “because you’re too used to being so callously unfeeling that you have no fucking clue how to act when it’s anything different.” 

Levi stiffens. Pure white noise fills his ears. He feels like someone’s dumped lighter fluid inside of him and then chucked a flaming match down his throat. 

“That’s enough,” he whispers, voice deathly quiet. Either Eren doesn’t notice or doesn’t care because he continues, nearing shouting now. 

“So if confessing my fucking feelings makes me a coward, I wonder what that makes you, Levi? You’re so scared to admit anything to yourself that all you do is lash out and hurt the people who are brave enough to try. Why is that - no, fucking look at me, _why is that?”_

“I said, that’s _enough!”_

His voice matches Eren’s in volume this time. 

There’s a ringing silence that follows but Levi can barely hear it over the steady thump of his heartbeat and the blood rushing in his ears. 

He swallows thickly. His hands are clenched so tightly that he knows his nails must be drawing blood. _Get a fucking grip._ He hasn’t felt this out of control of his emotions in a long, long time. 

“You know what I think?” Eren says quietly after a few minutes have passed. He grabs Levi’s throat with sudden force and shoves his head back, forces him to look at him. Levi clenches his jaw and clamps his tongue between his teeth in a last effort to contain his fury. “I think that Humanity’s Strongest is a fucking joke. I think that you’ve been through such a hell of a life that you’ve become desensitised to a hell of a lot of things. And I think that when you realise you can’t desensitise yourself from every feeling, you fear it.” 

Rage blazes inside of him; pulsing hotly through his bones. His entire body is as tense and trembling as a live wire pulled taut. 

All he can see is Eren’s face, vision blotting in the enormity of his anger, and how it is pulled into an expression of cool contempt. Eren’s eyes burn into Levi’s like white fire.

“And I pity you, Levi.” 

The wire snaps. He’s barely aware of it when he breaks the grip holding him in place but he must do, because all of sudden Eren’s stumbling away from him like he’s been shoved. 

His hands are shaking so badly that he’s unable to curl them back into fists. Levi doesn’t think he’s ever been this angry in his life. 

“Get out. Get the fuck out.”

His voice is trembling in a kind of frenzied rage and, for a second, he thinks Eren won’t leave. 

Levi keeps his gaze fixed on the floor because if he looks at him he honestly doesn’t know if he’ll be able to keep from slamming him to the ground and kicking him until every last breath has passed through his body. 

Then, after what feels like an eternity, Eren moves; walking past him and through the doorway before closing the door behind him with surprising softness. 

Levi remains in his spot for a long time after, until he can’t feel his heartbeat in his eyes anymore and the thudding of blood has left his eardrums. 

He retreats into his bed, sliding beneath the blankets and waiting until every last flame of fury has mostly extinguished itself before letting coherent thoughts fill his head once more. All of Eren’s words reverberate in the pressing silence but, by the time he finally rolls over and let’s sleep take him, only one remains. 

_And I pity you, Levi._

The next morning dawns bright, cold and with a storm that’s set to hit them around noon rolling in from the south-east. 

At least, that’s what Hanji tells him over breakfast. He’s barely settled down opposite them on one of the more neatly stacked planks of wood that they’re all using as makeshift meal benches before they’re turning to him, eyes bright and eager and annoyingly undaunted by his deep-set scowl. 

“You are simply glowing in the sunlight today, Levi! Have you been using a new lotion - one of your cleaning products, perhaps? I tested out the effects of swapping soap with your bleach on some willing participants and according to their reports, it stung. I thought it might be a good component for the new ammunition I’m preparing.” 

They grin widely and Levi raises his eyebrows, feeling a bit lost. Hanji is known for their bizarre habits that turn successively stranger in the changing of their mood but even this seems slightly unhinged. 

He sends a dubious glance at Armin, who’s seated next to him, but he just shrugs, hiding his amusement beneath the polite smile that seems permanently fixed on his face. Levi lowers his brow and turns back to his bread and tea. 

“Morning. Don’t use my bleach, I’m in short supply, and it’s a toxin anyway.” He pauses and glances up at them. “I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?” 

Out of all of them, Hanji and Armin have grown into their shared leadership together. 

Levi can recall many nights when he snuck down to the kitchen to retrieve some more tea only to find the two of them still up; huddled close together over a painful mess of notes or talking quietly in hushed voices or, on two memorable occasions, Hanji comforting a weeping Armin. 

“Not at all.” Hanji waves off his question. “We were just discussing the benefits of venturing out to retrieve supplies beneath the carapace of this advantageous storm-”

Levi sincerely doubts that the storm will offer them any form of protection but pointing this out to Hanji would be so pointless that it’s almost laughable and he nibbles on his bread instead.

“-which is really quite a fortunate turn of events in any case, considering how stable and dry the air around here is.” They squint distrustfully around them, as if expecting enemy troops to drop from the grey clouds above. “Hm. Perhaps our luck is changing. Anyway, I’ve drawn up a plan.” 

They slide a heavily creased, dog-eared notepad across the table towards him with handwriting scrawled so messily across it that he simply stares at it for a few seconds before realising they expect him to read it. 

Upon further inspection, Levi makes out a suspicious looking stain across several of the pages and inches away from the pad entirely. He will have to decontaminate. 

“I’m not touching that,” he informs them and sips his tea firmly to make his point clear. 

Armin snorts into his coffee. 

Hanji rolls their eyes and snatches it back, stuffing it into their shirt pocket before continuing undeterred.

“It’s a key supply run so we need only the most highly skilled, especially as it’s being delivered further out than usual and we’re technically residing in a Titan populated area. I’ve arranged for Kirstein, Springer, Ackerman, Armin and myself to retrieve the supplies. Oh, and you, of course,” they add as an afterthought. 

He tears apart the last of his bread into two separate chunks. 

“What about me?” interrupts Jean, settling beside Levi with a dangerously full mug of coffee and _severely_ invading his personal space as he swings his legs over the bench. 

Connie has arrived with him, taking the seat opposite him and next to Hanji. The two of them have grown invariably closer since Sasha’s death, training late into the night and spending the vast majority of waking hours in each other’s presence. 

There’s an unspoken rule within the Survey Corps that Levi abides strictly by and doesn’t concern himself with others’ grief - each person carries so much that it would weigh them all down completely if they did - but he does hope, at a careful distance, that Connie and Jean get enough time to grieve Sasha before either are separated from the other again. 

“You’re supporting a supply run in three hours, Kirstein,” Hanji declares with the air of someone unveiling a grand surprise before grabbing Armin’s coffee and taking a large gulp. “You too, Springer.” 

Jean raises an eyebrow and Connie glances up at the darkening sky with a doubtful expression on his face. 

“With all due respect, Commander,” he begins. “It looks as though there’s about to be a heavy storm, can’t we-”

“Exactly,” beams Hanji and Levi returns to his meal disinterestedly. It’s an utter waste of time attempting to dissuade them now. Still, Jean and Connie try. Levi supposes he has to admire their ambition. 

“But all our equipment will be soaked, that’s valuable shit right there-” 

“Commander, at least wait until past noon-” 

“Ah, Ackerman! Sit.”

Hanji appears to conjure Mikasa out of thin air, grabbing her wrist and steering her forcefully down into the space beside them.

“We’re leaving here in three hours exactly for a supply run. Bring your ODM gear and clothing sufficient for bad weather.” 

Mikasa raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything as she looks around the table, eyes narrowed. 

“Mikasa, please tell the Commander why we should wait until tomorrow,” Jean implores her, only half-joking. 

“I’ll give you the rest of my bread,” Connie adds, waving it like a beacon above his head. 

Levi sees Hanji’s mouth twitch in amusement. 

Mikasa ignores them and turns to Hanji. “All of us?” 

“Yes.” 

“What about Eren? Who’s going to look after him?” 

An uncomfortable silence falls between them and Levi resolves to eat breakfast alone in the stables from now on. The tension is palpable. 

He busies himself by sweeping his breadcrumbs into a neat pile. 

“I’m sure Eren can look after himself, Mikasa. He did it for two years without your help,” Jean takes an unnecessarily hard bite of his bread and Levi feels Armin tense next to him. 

The glare is audible in Mikasa’s voice when she speaks.

“I wasn’t talking about that. If we’re all gone for hours on end, don’t you think he’s liable to escape? Don’t you think he’ll be able to tell that it’s a rare opportunity? Floch and the others won’t be able to stop him.” 

“Mikasa,” snaps Connie, leaning further down the table to frown at her, “Eren’s behind iron bars with three different kinds of locks on them. Not to mention that there’s always two guards watching him at all times. I know you like to think of Eren as this invincible force of nature but even he can’t escape from there.” 

“I agree with Connie-” 

“Mikasa’s right,” interrupts Armin, frowning slightly as he pauses. “Besides...I think...well, I’m not sure. It isn’t something we can say for definite, especially considering the minuteness we have to go on, but...” 

“Spit it out, Arlert.” 

Levi manages to sound rather blasé, but his pulse has quickened with alarming speed. Leave it to Eren to forget to close his fucking cell door or something. 

“Yes, sorry, sir,” Armin falters slightly, flustered. “I have reason to believe that Eren may have already escaped.” 

_Shit._ Levi’s knee bangs against the table. Everyone turns to look at him. _Shit._ He can practically hear the cogs in Mikasa’s mind whirring. 

“Sorry,” he mutters into the silence and glares in automatic defense. “Continue, Arlert.” 

“How do you know this?” demands Jean, peering around him at Armin. 

“This morning, when I went down to, um, check on him, I noticed that three consecutive bars were bent out of shape slightly, as if they’d been pulled apart and then straightened again. Or something like that, I’m not entirely sure.” 

Connie scoffs, opening his mouth to speak, but Hanji leans forward, frowning in interest, and Armin continues, clearly gathering confidence. 

“I know that they hadn’t been like that the previous night, which leads me to think that, if I’m right and he did escape, it was sometime between last night and this morning,” he finishes and glances around at them all, slightly flushed. 

_Shit._ Fucking Arlert and his attentiveness. No, actually, fucking Eren and his lack of proper care. Levi’s heart is thumping so loudly he’s sure that they must all be able to hear it. 

“I dunno…” Jean makes an unconvinced noise.

“You’re sure of this, Armin?” Hanji presses intertwined fingers to their mouth and Levi swallows when he sees the gravely thoughtful look in their eyes. 

Armin nods. “Positive, Commander.” 

There’s a small pause in which Levi contemplates stabbing himself in the eye with Hanji’s pen to create a sufficient diversion, before Connie looks between them all and interrupts the silence. 

“Commander, you can’t seriously think that Eren could pull apart iron bars, sneak out of his cell _unnoticed_ and then return after a few hours? That’s completely illogical.” 

“No,” says Hanji slowly. “I agree, I don’t think that even Eren is capable of doing that. But I do think the War Hammer Titan is.” 

It’s taking every last bit of Levi’s concentration to keep his face as impassive and indifferent as ever. Mikasa’s eyes feel like they’re burning a mark into the side of his face. 

“As for sneaking out unnoticed,” a grim shadow passes over Hanji’s face, “I’ll talk to the guards in charge of him last night. Jones and Young, if I remember correctly. And off the top of my head, the only reason I can think for Eren actually moving back into his cell is if…” 

They pause, clearly lost in thought, and the rest of them wait in silence. Underneath the table, Levi's hands have unconsciously clenched into fists. 

“Is if he was visiting someone - Zeke, maybe - or contacting someone on the outside. Still, if he has reason not to leave right now, we can assume that he’ll be with us for at least the next week.” 

_I’ll be gone by the end of this month, at the latest._

“Right.” They stand up so briskly that even Levi is startled. “Change of plans. Ackerman, Kirstein and Springer will accompany me on the supply run. Armin and Levi, you two stay here. If anything happens, send up a red flare. I estimate that we’ll be eight miles away, but the ground is reasonably level around here so we’ll be able to see it regardless. Armin, you’re in command for now. Put Forster and Dreyse on guard for Eren but detain the previous two until I arrive back.” 

Mikasa makes a move as though she’s about to protest before thinking better of it and, soon after Hanji walks quickly away, she leaves too. Armin waits a few seconds before going after her, mumbling “I’ll check on her…” to nobody in particular and leaving the three of them alone. 

Levi stares down at the table, heart still beating uncomfortably fast even though the danger seems to have passed, at least for now. 

“Do you really think Eren’s gotten out?” he hears Connie murmur quietly to Jean after a few seconds. 

“I don’t know,” answers Jean slowly. “But I don’t like it. And, well. You know Armin. He’s rarely wrong about these kinds of things.” 

“Yeah…” 

Silence falls. Levi finds himself torn between returning to his quarters immediately and staying here to clear his head before he goes anywhere. 

Jean makes the decision for him when he asks, slightly tentatively but much less than it would have been two years ago, “What do you reckon, Captain?” 

There were multiple answers to that, ranging from _I reckon Eren will either be dead or dying by the time I’m finished with him_ to _I reckon I’m too old for this shit._

“It’s annoying…” He eventually remarks after a pause long enough to make them both turn to him. 

It says a lot when Jean and Connie take his lack of conviction in their stride and nod along, as if they too find it mildly irritating that Eren, their former comrade turned dangerous potential enemy, probably escaped his high security cell to prowl the halls freely as they slept.

Levi sighs heavily and, without another word, gets up and heads back to his room, thinking deeply the whole way there. 

Eren’s parting words from last night had clawed their way into his mind during the few hours of sleep he’d managed to get and, upon waking, he had found them lurking there still. 

Any residual anger must have burnt itself out while he had rested because, as he’d watched the first rays of sunlight split the darkness and filter through the clouds, he had realised that Eren’s words held more truth than he’d like to admit. 

He hadn’t dwelled on the subject for long - _was there even much to dwell on?_ \- but had had enough time to register that Eren was, ultimately, correct. From there, Levi’s perplexed. Had Eren known that this whole time? 

Overlooking the fact that he had somehow figured it out before even Levi himself, had he gone into his room last night with that knowledge? Perhaps earlier - as he had written letter after letter or during his time in Liberio. 

It had made Levi soften, slightly, at the thought that Eren could have seen all of that, understood it more than he had, and yet still want to, in some form, be with him.

Regardless, he feels unwilling to grant Eren much more than that and, frankly, Levi’s feelings for him aren’t any of his business. Levi nods in agreement with himself as he rounds the corner towards his room. 

Now that he was excused from the supply run, he supposes that he might as well attempt to wade through the paperwork that has mounted to a distressing degree over the past week. 

He works relentlessly for hours, hand moving across the pages until it aches and the ink threatens to run blotchy. All the while, the storm rages outside, roaring in such a way that Levi is reminded irrevocably of Eren’s Titan and then of Eren. 

Rain lashes against the windows, rattling the glass where it stands in it’s pane, while the fire flickers in the wall lanterns with every gust of wind that creeps inside. By the time the pile is finally finished, signed and tightly bound and ready to be sent back by one unlucky courier, the sky outside his window is black. 

Stretching out in his chair, Levi leans back and lets his eyes flutter closed for a moment. He never wants to see another document in his entire life. How the hell Erwin managed to do that for days on end remains an enigma. 

Blinking his eyes open again, Levi glances out through the window. The storm's darkened sky makes it harder to tell but he’s sure it must be well past ten o’clock by now. He trusts that Hanji and the others have made it back safe with a fresh load of supplies. 

Hopefully they hadn’t forgotten the tea he’d requested. After all, he had left several notes in Hanji’s room as he was doing his weekly cleaning. 

He waits and reads and drafts a few rather heated letters to Nile Dok and waits some more and this time, when Eren slips inside his room with a barely there creak of the door, he’s prepared. 

Perhaps it’s the sweetly wavering light from the candles, or the irrefutable fact that his perception of Eren has shifted within the past day, or the lateness of the hour, or the culmination of all _three,_ but Levi feels his lungs collapse somewhat as the man in question moves further into his space, sharp eyes trailing over him where he’s sat. 

He swallows. This is going to be much harder than he thought.

“Arlert noticed you’d escaped,” he says, in lieu of a greeting, and then, when Eren simply looks at him, “you were careless.” 

“Couldn’t be helped,” Eren tells him, looking rather disinterested, and Levi tamps down on the frustration that flares in his chest. 

“Don’t let it happen again.” 

“I won’t.” 

He wants to question him further, press him on the recklessness that seems to be a permanent fixture in his attitude these days, but Eren suddenly rounds his desk and heads toward the cabinet that lines the wall behind.

Slightly stunned, Levi watches as he rummages through the drawers, pulling them open and rifling through the contents as if he’s searching for something.

“Oi, oi. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

His calm demeanor evaporates and he stares with indignant bewilderment as Eren sighs heavily and shuts the drawers again. 

“Looking for my letters.” 

Eren seems to think that justifies him rooting around in Levi’s stuff as he bends directly over him, frowning slightly, and begins to hunt through his desk instead. 

What the fuck. 

“What the fuck,” says Levi aloud, still fairly staggered. Nobody has ever touched his things without his permission before; probably out of fear he’d slice their damn fingers off. 

Eren shifts above him in order to pull open the drawer furthest away and Levi suddenly finds his face inches away from his bare chest. Again. What is _wrong_ with Eren and the ability to put on a shirt. 

His fingers hook through the middle drawer’s handle and Levi slams his hand on top reflexively. 

“Stop,” he orders him this time. “Before I cut your hand off.” 

“It’ll grow back,” Eren reminds him unconcernedly before glancing towards him. “Are they in there?” 

There isn’t much point in lying. 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay.” There’s a small pause. “Can I see?” 

Levi stiffens slightly and his hand around Eren’s tightens. Nobody besides him has ever seen the contents of that particular drawer. He weighs it up, staying quiet. 

“Levi?” Eren’s voice is softer now. Levi refuses to look at him. 

Then he sighs, still undecided, and drops his hand to lean back in his chair with false indifference, arms crossing defensively over his chest. 

“Go ahead.” 

Eren watches him for a few moments but, by the time Levi looks up to question his silence, he’s opened the drawer. 

He watches through a guarded expression as Eren takes out the wooden box, careful in his movements as if he knows how much this means. As if he knows that Levi is bearing the most vulnerable pieces of himself for him to see. 

He keeps his eyes firmly trained on Eren’s hands as he lifts the lid and gently sifts through the contents. He’s too afraid to look at him should he see sadness, indifference or, god forbid, pity. His heart thumps against his ribcage. 

Neither of them speak and it’s a small blessing that Levi is grateful for. Eren handles the items with care and his expression merely softens slightly as he lays each one on the desk. 

The faded woven badges whenever Levi was able to retrieve them, some more frayed and spattered with blood than others. A knotted, trumpet-shaped shell that he had stolen from the sea itself. A few battered chess pieces, which he had been selfishly unable to part with, from Erwin’s set. One of Isabel’s rings and Furlan’s engraved pocket knife. The note that he, Hanji and Erwin had passed back and forth during a meeting years ago, stupid, _useless_ sketches scrawled upon it for their own rare amusement. 

In all these years, Levi hasn’t looked back once; every choice he’s made has been - _has_ to have been, for his sanity alone - one with no regrets. It’s something that enables him to dedicate his mind solely to the future. He doesn’t collect these things for sentiment but rather so that, if by some sort of sick joke he’s still alive when this is all over, he might not be so completely alone. 

It feels like years have passed by the time Eren pulls out the letters. 

They’re stacked tightly together in a neat bundle, tied by a delicately thin ribbon that Levi had managed to purloin when they’d visited Marley. The letters themselves, he realises with a faint twinge of embarrassment, are smoothly flattened in a way that could only be from copious amounts of reading and re-reading. 

Eren turns the bundle over in his hands and, when Levi finally dares to glance at him, his expression is one of mild awe. 

“You kept them all,” he murmurs after a long examination. “I thought maybe you would burn them.” 

Levi snorts and taps his fingers against his own arm as he shifts uncomfortably in his chair. 

“I’m not completely devoid of emotion, Eren.” 

The smile that graces Eren’s features is small but unmistakable. They both stay like that for a few minutes, Levi watching Eren, Eren staring somewhere past the letters that are still clutched in his hands. 

“Levi,” Eren begins, with the kind of sigh that makes him shift uneasily in his chair, and places the letters on the desk. “What I said last night...it crossed way past the line, I know it did, and I’m sorry.” 

He sighs again, quieter this time, and looks at him with evident regret. 

“It was...disrespectful,” Levi agrees without heat, looking down at his hands just to avoid his gaze. Confrontation is a prerequisite for whatever is next and he understands that much, at least. 

“But,” he continues, because he really can’t expect Eren to be the one to break the rather gauche atmosphere. “I think it may have been necessary.” 

There’s a silence. Levi twists his hands together. 

“For you to say,” he adds uselessly. “To me. Um.” 

Glancing up from his lap, he sees Eren’s amused expression and lowers his brow, unimpressed. 

“Sorry,” Eren grins, charmingly brazen. “I wanted to see where you would take that. So.” 

He straightens up and lounges, quite uninvitedly, on Levi’s desk to face him directly. Levi feels his mouth lift in reluctant amusement at his words as he watches, intrigued in spite of himself.  
“You kept them all then.” Eren gestures to the letters. “Can I take that to assume you appreciated them?” 

“If you want. Though I was severely tempted to dispose of them on several occasions.” 

Levi leaves out the part of waiting, hopelessly agitated, between deliveries. 

“But you didn’t.” Eren’s gaze is loaded where it’s fixed on him. 

“Yeah. Well.” Part of him wants to make a scathing comment, to cut him down and keep this entire thing at arm’s length, but Eren’s words from last night still make sense to him and he tamps down on the reflex instead.

“They meant a lot to me, Eren. It wouldn’t have made sense for me not to keep them.” 

Eren nods slowly, leaning further back on his desk. Levi fidgets in his seat. 

“I meant everything I said in them, you know,” Eren tells him and he feels a sharp surge of jealousy that all of this seems to come so _easily_ to Eren, like admitting his love is something he does daily. “And I’m sorry that it happened in this way. Must have been hard for you.” 

It had been. Levi had spent many nights unable to sleep and days unable to think; his feelings torn so brutally between deep affection and loathing and nothing at all. He supposes they’re still somewhat like that even now. 

“Look, Levi,” Eren sighs heavily. “I want to do this with you. I think, in Marley, a part of me - a part of me that was separate from all the war and Titans and, well, everything - realised that this was my last chance to reach out to you and if I didn’t do it then, I- I wouldn’t be able to do it ever.” 

There’s a small pause, in which Eren looks at him imploringly. Levi waits, because there’s still a fair amount of residual anger and confusion and he’s at a goddamn loss. 

“I know that you feel the same way, Levi, and I’m not...I’m not sure if I’ll ever see you again once I leave here. You told me this, you told me to make the choice I would regret least. I’m making it, Levi. And now- now I need you to make yours, too.” 

The breath had caught in Levi’s throat somewhere along his little speech and it’s still there now, making his head spin slightly. _A choice with no regrets._ He turns the words over in his mind. If he let Eren go now, for a second time, the regret would be present every day. But if he does this, if _they_ do this…

“How do I know you’re not just using me?” 

Eren reels back like he’s been slapped. 

“Levi, I- I can’t prove to you that I’m not. But you _have_ to know that I couldn’t do that, not to you, not with this. Just. You'll have to trust me. Come on, don’t look at me like that.” 

“I’m not looking at you in any way.” 

Levi stands, cursing inwardly when Eren’s still hovering over him, and walks over to his tea tray. 

“You are. It’s the same expression you used to make when we wouldn’t finish cleaning on time.” 

“Tch. Eren,” he begins, scooping tea leaves into one mug. It’s easier to talk without looking at him. “It would be impractical.” 

“I don’t care. I don’t think you do either.” 

“Irresponsible too.” 

“No one will find out.” 

“Probably illegal.” 

“When has that ever stopped you?” 

Levi scowls into his cup. _For fuck’s sake._

He attempts to strengthen his resolve, picturing Hanji’s face in his mind’s eye, but instead a memory surfaces. 

Of Hanji advising him to tell Eren how he feels, years ago, as they stood knee-deep in ocean water for the first time, feeling as though they had the world at their fingertips. He hadn’t; he’d stayed silent and woken days later with Eren missing and...regretted it. He had regretted it. 

“Are you out of reasons?” Eren asks unhelpfully. 

He doesn’t answer, which is an answer in itself, and swallows slightly when he hears Eren push himself off the desk and walk over to him. Strong arms reach around him, hands closing over his own where they rest on the tray, and Levi thinks _oh._

Heat floods against his skin, making goosebumps rise, and he feels himself lean back into the firm chest behind him. He can feel his resolution disintegrating with every passing second. 

“I know you’re hurting,” Eren’s voice is soft, quiet like he knows the precipice they’re standing on. “I know you are. And that you have been for a long time. Just let me take care of you, Levi.” 

Levi closes his eyes and swallows thickly. _A choice with the least regret._ But he _can’t._

“You can,” Eren murmurs and he sounds so gentle that it makes Levi’s heart ache. “Please. Let me take care of you. Even if it’s just for tonight.” 

He inhales shakily. Eren’s thumb is rubbing tender circles into the back of his hand like he’s healing his wounds. The promise of _just for tonight_ is like the final blow to his crumbling resolve. 

“Shit.” The word falls from between his lips and Eren must feel how badly he’s trembling because he pulls away, slightly, and no, damn it, Levi doesn’t want _that._

He turns around in his arms, more on instinct than anything else, but Eren must understand immediately because he tightens his hold again.

Flickering candle light stains Eren’s skin amber and it’s soothing like the slow, seeping fall of honey. He wants to give in. 

“Eren.” 

He’s so near now that Levi’s face tilts up to look at him and it takes him a few seconds to realise that Eren’s hand is cupping his jaw gently, thumb grazing over his cheekbone. 

Levi doesn’t think he could look away even if he wanted to. 

They’re close enough that he could lean in minutely and they would have crossed a metaphorical line. The steady thump of a heart beats inside his ears and he wonders distantly if it’s Eren’s or his own. 

“Eren,” he whispers again, for what he doesn’t know, but then it doesn’t matter, nothing matters at all suddenly, because Eren’s closed the space left between them and kisses him. 

It’s a fleeting touch, a soft graze of lips on Levi’s, but he feels it more than all of the injuries his body has taken combined. Eren doesn’t move again, stays _just_ out of his reach, and Levi knows he’s waiting for him to make a decision.

In the end, he realises as he leans up, pressing his lips to Eren’s for a second time, he made the choice years ago. And he’s kept on making it ever since. 

This time, when he kisses him, there’s intent behind it. The room is a cruel tyranny for ascertainment and his veins are beating in a frisson and Eren’s lips are velvet against his own. 

Eren pushes him gently until his back is flush against the wall, until he’s cornered in a way that’s completely foreign to him, and kisses him with the kind of tenderness that Levi is wholly not used to. But, he admits to himself in the quiet of his own head, he doesn’t mind it as much as he thought he would. 

Levi barely registers where his hands are but he manages to locate them eventually; one pulling Eren invariably closer by his bicep, the other reaching up to tangle through his hair, thoughtless of the bun. His mouth feels like a soothing balm to his guilty mind and Levi kisses him feverishly, opens his own without a second thought when Eren licks along the seam of his lips in invitation. 

He bites down on Eren's bottom lip, more to push boundaries than anything else, and feels a flush of heat unfurl inside of him when it only makes Eren push back in challenge.

He lets him press him up further into the wall and the brick doesn’t feel nearly as unforgiving as last time, as if it’s been tamed in the fragility of the moment. Every gasp only serves to pull them closer together and every deep swipe of the tongue and lingering touch feels to Levi like the interlude between jumping and falling. 

“Is this okay?” Eren moves away to ask, leaning their foreheads together like he can’t bear to let go completely. 

“You would be unconscious right now if it wasn’t.” 

Eren huffs out a laugh, pressing a kiss to his lips. 

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” 

Levi doesn’t respond, can’t exactly with Eren’s tongue inside his mouth again, but he savours the words in his mind and files them away for later. 

Eren appears to take advantage of Levi’s momentary lapse in concentration because his hands disappear fleetingly before gripping the back of his thighs and, in one fluid motion before he can object, actually lifts him up. Levi’s impassive expression shatters as his eyes widen in shock, legs involuntarily wrapping around Eren’s waist. 

“Drop me and I’ll chop your balls off,” he threatens rather blasély once he’s recovered somewhat. 

It just. It stuns him, a bit, that the same Eren who once stuttered and blushed whenever Levi spoke to him can now pick him up and hold him against a wall with apparent ease - and no, more than that, _confidence._

He has the nerve to smile, as if Levi’s joking, and shrugs off-handedly. 

“They’ll grow-” 

Levi kisses him again and it's mostly just to shut him up. 

It seems to work, in any case, and Eren pulls him away from the wall, walking over to the bed and depositing him on top of the sheets like he’s precious cargo. 

He almost wishes he felt uncomfortable, or at least guilty, as Eren pulls away from his mouth to press wet, open mouthed kisses against his jaw. Mostly, though, he just feels safe. Levi swallows at the realisation. 

Eren’s hands have moved to hold his hips down, keeping his back pressed against the sheets, and it’s then that he banishes all logical thought from his mind, closes his eyes and throws his head back and lets himself sink into the all encompassing feeling of Eren. 

Eren leans down and connects their mouths again, hot and heavy and Levi just sinks into it. He groans low in his throat when he feels Eren's hands wander further downwards, past his waist and then his hips and perhaps, if he had more space to think, he would feel slightly embarrassed by how badly he wants it.

He bites gently down on his earlobe, licking over it a second later as Levi shivers, before whispering into the shell of his ear, “Can I fuck you?” 

His brain short-circuits briefly. 

“Oh. Okay.” 

Eren laughs then, shoulders shaking with silent amusement, and Levi is about to ask what could possibly be so funny right now when he speaks. 

“You’re a hard man to please, Levi.” The smile is clear in his voice. “That was quite the bruise to my ego.” 

In spite of himself, he feels the corners of his mouth lilting up in shared amusement. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he amends, tries to arrange his features into a more sincere expression, and cups one hand around Eren’s jaw to look at him properly. “I want you to.” 

Eren’s eyes have darkened subtly and Levi’s half expecting it when he drags him closer to kiss him, fiercer than before, all clashing teeth and bitten lips. He thumbs at Levi’s jaw, a gesture so out of place with the heat that’s driving them, and he narrows his eyes slightly. He doesn’t need Eren going soft on him now. _Ha._

“Don’t think I’m that easy, Jaeger,” he mutters into his mouth, using his knees to keep Eren in place as he flips them over before straddling him with ease. 

Surprise shadows Eren’s face for a second but it’s replaced just as quickly with a charmed, challenging expression, an eyebrow quirking upward. 

“Never thought for a minute you were,” he pauses, a slyly amused glint in his eyes, _“captain.”_

“Don’t call me that,” Levi tells him, pinning Eren’s wrists against his chest with both hands. 

“Why not?” 

Eren probably knows exactly why not. Levi studies him for a moment. He smiles back at him. 

“It’s inappropriate,” he declares eventually and Eren actually laughs out loud. 

"Are you seriously still thinking like that?" he asks, deeply incredulous. "Levi. Look at the position we're in." 

Levi chews on his lip as he considers. Eren watches him in amused disbelief.

“Besides it didn't stop my younger self from conjuring up a fair amount of nighttime scenarios,” he admits without a shred of shame when Levi doesn't say anything. He waits a few seconds and Levi watches him. “Did it stop you?” 

His voice lilts in amusement, as if he already knows the answer, and Levi damns it _all_ when he flushes for quite possibly the first time in his life, shifting involuntarily on Eren’s hips. 

_“Oh,”_ Eren looks far too smug and Levi scowls. Arrogant brat. “I see. Care to share the details of what they entailed, Levi?” 

He, quite frankly, does _not._

Raising his eyebrows in an effort to salvage his quickly dwindling self-respect, Levi doesn’t reply - which is probably his first mistake, as Eren takes it as an invitation to continue. 

“Me bent over a tree? A late night rendezvous in the stables?” 

_“Eren,”_ Levi splutters, laughter spilling out of his mouth before he can help it, and Eren’s smile widens as he sits up, hands creeping out of his hold to rest against his hips. 

“Hmm,” he wonders aloud, tugging Levi closer until he’s in his goddamn lap. “Maybe you imagined me taking you on freshly washed, iron pressed sheets - lavender scented, of course, and dust free.” 

Levi snorts inelegantly, bowing his head because he’s not used to laughing in front of Eren, and all he can think is _idiot_ and _he’s funny_ and _should it be this easy._

“Probably after we’d bathed _meticulously,”_ Eren laughs quietly and Levi shakes his head, presses his face into his shoulder to smother his laughter there. “With a whole array of soaps and ointments and-” 

_“Idiot,”_ Levi cuts him off, wishing he sounded more intimidating as he winds his arms around his neck. 

“Alright,” Eren agrees easily. 

Perhaps Eren senses that he’s about to make a scathing comment because he kisses him with another surge of urgency that takes Levi slightly by surprise. 

He yields nonetheless; hands finding purchase on Eren’s shoulders, nails biting into the bare skin there as quick fingers dip beneath his shirt. 

Eren’s breath is soft when Levi swallows it down, leaning into him just to feel him lean back. He rises on his knees slightly as Eren pulls his shirt off him, chucking it carelessly onto the bed beside them, before letting him pull him back into his lap with ardent hands.

Levi hadn’t thought it would feel like this. 

So frantic and fervent yet with such a deep undercurrent of tenderness, as though neither of them can bear to grasp the night too tightly. He barely wants to let himself think, lest guilt and shame creep in, and yet he’s never wanted to catalogue anything with such rapt precision before, never wants to allow how he’s feeling now to fade from his memory. 

Eren presses kisses against his collarbone, gentle until Levi tires of it and grinds down onto him, a subtle message that Eren somehow understands because he bites against him, teeth and lips grazing over his skin. Levi shakes his head suddenly. 

“Tch. Don’t, Eren. Don’t leave any marks.” 

Eren rolls his eyes, pulling him closer by his waist, but concedes. Levi inwardly curses the day that he got to be so confident around him. 

He can feel Eren half hard beneath him and grinds down again, swallowing his moan as he kisses him. One of his hands is mapping out Levi’s spine, cradling him as Levi presses their bodies flush together, while the other is still wandering steadily downwards, knuckles brushing against his stomach briefly. 

Levi huffs out a shallow breath, chest rising and falling heavily, and grabs Eren’s tentative hand with his own. He pushes it towards his crotch, slightly impatient. 

“You can. I won’t break.” He presses the words in the corner of Eren’s mouth, feels it when he swallows and then a second later when he nods. 

“I know you won’t,” he murmurs, more in one exhale than anything else, and Levi frowns slightly, because there’s a clear deeper meaning behind the words, but then Eren presses a clever hand against him, cups him with just enough of the right pressure, and Levi lets out a shaky breath against his skin instead. 

It’s been a long time since he’s done this. Hell, he’s never done _this_ \- never gone through these motions with someone who means so much. It makes his stomach quiver with nerves and yet it also feels so much _more,_ almost overwhelming in the strength of it’s eclipse to other experiences. 

He lets Eren touch him through his pants, like they’re fucking teenage cadets and not adult veterans, grinding down against him in turn until they’re both kissing messily just to hide their moans. He’s shameless, now, past the point of return and long past the point of wanting to return. 

Self restraint was always a strength of his until it wasn’t anymore. Until Eren walked into his room - or rather, out of his cell - and carved out his place inside of him that had been there all along. 

Levi pushes his ass down onto Eren again, feels his hand massage him with the kind of care that can’t be learned from yourself, before the pressure is gone and Eren’s murmuring against his ear, “Where do you keep your oils?” 

Rolling his eyes, Levi bites down against the skin of his shoulder. 

“This isn’t a fucking brothel, Eren.” 

Snorting, Eren leans away from him to open his bedside table’s drawers and root around in them. Levi watches him, feeling strangely unoffended, before he retrieves a circular jar with a smile and moves back into place. 

“I didn’t know that was there,” Levi tells him honestly, eyeing the small pot suspiciously. 

Perhaps Hanji placed it there in one of their persistent attempts to get him laid. He wouldn’t put it past them. 

“Of course not.” Eren nods with clear disbelief. 

“I didn’t.” He runs one hand over the back of Eren’s neck, fingers trailing unconsciously over his nape. 

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, Levi,” he admonishes him, snickering a second later when Levi cuffs him loosely on the back of his head. 

“Oi.” 

Eren’s fingers are quick to undo his trousers, sliding the material over his hips and then his thighs and then off completely, replacing them with his own hands as he runs them over the soft skin, muscle tough under the surface. 

In a sudden moment of slight diffidence, Levi buries his head in the space between Eren’s shoulder and his neck, as his heart thumps wildly against his ribcage. He hates feeling so exposed, he realises with a childish kick of discomfort. 

“Might have known you’d be gorgeous.” Eren sighs the words out like a prayer. 

Levi can’t think of a response in time - not a witty one anyway - and then he feels Eren close one firm hand around his stiff length, squeezing the base gently before moving up to thumb over the tip, pressing down slightly until Levi has to close his eyes. His breath hitches and then rolls out, low and stuttering and unsteady against Eren’s neck. 

He moves his lips down the side of Levi's neck, pausing only to press a kiss underneath his ear, as he strokes his hand down his cock. A breathy moan leaves Levi's lips before he can swallow it back. A significant chunk of him still can't believe this is happening.

 _“Eren.”_

“Mm?” 

Levi makes a frustrated noise and he huffs out a laugh, fingers tightening beneath the head for a moment before he loosens his grip entirely. 

Arching his back slightly for easier access, he feels Eren reach one hand behind him to slip down past his lower back, over the swell of his ass, until he’s pushing his fingers in between with a certain amount of roughness that Levi’s head spins at. 

He lets his forehead rest against Eren's shoulder, closing his eyes because it feels as though something inbetween his chest and his stomach is trembling. _God._

He can't remember the last time he felt this nervous and it's so _stupid,_ it is, because he can take down 15 metre Titans like it's nothing but this, _this,_ feels like so much more. 

He tenses, pulse jumping, when Eren massages one oil slicked finger over his entrance before nudging it in gently. The intrusion makes his abdomen tighten with discomfort. 

It hits him then, quite out of the blue, that he might not even be physically ready for this. 

He can’t help the pained gasp that escapes his tightly closed mouth, lips pressed together against the sting of it all. It's minimal but it's not the kind of pain that he's accustomed to and that makes it all the more noticeable. He grits his teeth when Eren slows his movements.

“Getting a change of heart, Jaeger?” he bites the words out and they land somewhere between defensive and cutting. 

“Course not,” Eren sounds deeply offended and then, quieter, “I just don’t wanna hurt you.” 

_Fucking hell._ Eren is probably the only traitorous, murdering war criminal who could sound so genuinely upset about the idea of even mildly hurting him. 

“For the love of Sina,” Levi mutters into his shoulder before clenching his jaw and pushing himself completely back onto his finger decisively, making them both gasp. “I’ve been having cocks shoved inside me since before you _existed,_ Eren, so if you think-” 

“Alright, alright. Fuck.” Eren sounds slightly awed as he presses a second finger along with the first, giving him no more time for adjustment. 

The stretch burns this time and Eren kisses his neck - probably in a sweet attempt to distract him - while he moves them past the first knuckle. Crooking his fingers slightly, he presses even further, fingertips brushing against something, and Levi closes his eyes against the sudden white heat that flares up behind them. 

His breath stutters as he holds back a moan, throat working as he swallows desperately, kissing the sweat salted skin of Eren’s shoulder just to cover the noises he’d be making otherwise. 

He notices, regardless of how he tries to conceal it, and keeps his fingers at that angle, moving them in and out with adept movements, each inward thrust a little further than the last. 

As if in battle with the pain, his whole body thrums with pleasure and he swivels his hips down to match Eren's movements just to heighten both feelings further. Pressed between them, his flushed cock is almost painfully hard, beads of pre-come wetting the tip. 

“Knew you’d be tight,” Eren tells him and Levi just tugs on his hair in response, winding his fingers tighter through the strands like he used to do with his Titan. 

He adjusts to the burn after a few more minutes, grinding his hips down further to hear Eren swear like _that,_ until he separates his fingers into a V-shape, stretching him out properly. 

Levi hisses, mind slightly hazy with lust, and moves the hand clasping Eren’s arm to clumsily grab at his cock instead; all elegance thrown aside. Eren curses again, voice rough, and he wastes no more time in undoing his pants, pressing frantic, messy kisses to his mouth as he wraps one hand around him. 

Eren is thick and hard and ever present in his grip, inside him, around him, and the weight of everything crashes down upon Levi with such vitality that it’s all he can do to keep breathing. 

The last of the sting of his fingers, worked up to three now, subsides into unadulterated pleasure and Levi lets that ground him, rocking his hips down into the sensation as he works his fist over Eren’s cock. 

He wishes, inanely, that he had felt this with such euphoric rapture before, that it wasn’t Eren and only Eren who was the independent variable to this blissfully relaxed state of being. 

Shit knows how it’s going to feel when he actually gets inside him. 

Three fingers deep, Eren makes to add a fourth and Levi can’t help but pull away to lower his brow into a glare. 

“Eren, if you keep treating me like I’m made of glass I might just punch you instead.” 

He laughs and pulls out his fingers, running one hand through Levi’s hair when he sighs involuntarily at the feeling of loss, before wiping them on his thigh. Levi wrinkles his nose in disgust. 

“You’re probably the only person in the world who can have three fingers up their arse and still sound threatening.” He sounds amused. 

“Probably,” Levi mutters, and then - for _some_ unbeknownst reason - he disentangles the hair tie that’s come loose in the heat of it all from Eren’s hair, sweeping the locks back and re-tying it carefully. Stray stands drift down, still, but Levi doesn’t mind the messiness so much now. 

Eren’s watching him, an imperceptible expression residing in his eyes, and Levi drops his hands as his movements catch up with him. It was too intimate, he realises, and its slightly ridiculous considering the position they’re both in, but even this - even this could just be _sex._ Just long felt feelings being fucked out to take the edge off. It’s plausible, should he need to think of it that way. 

Levi winces inwardly. _Fucking idiot._

Eren doesn’t say anything, thankfully, and just shifts them so that Levi’s lying with his stomach against the sheets. 

“Like this?” he asks and the softness in his voice makes him shiver. 

The air is still slightly awkward between them and Levi _hates it,_ wants it back the way it was before, but he just nods and presses his cheek against one of his pillows. He’ll have to disinfect the sheets tomorrow, he reminds himself, and the familiarity of the thought is strangely comforting. 

Eren hums and he hears him slick himself up before hands are on his waist, pulling his hips upward as a pillow is slipped beneath them. The gesture makes his heart twist. He ignores it studiously. 

Soft breaths blossom on the back of his shoulder, the fleeting pressure of a kiss on the skin there, and it makes the nerves in his stomach loosen slightly. 

“Levi, relax.” Eren presses the words into the back of his neck with another kiss, this time to his nape, which is probably ironic if Levi gave himself more time to think about it. 

Eren’s arm loops round so that his hand pans out over his stomach, tilting his hips further. 

“I can feel how tense you are.” 

“Tch.” Levi turns his face to the side, feels Eren’s lips brush below the knot of his jaw. 

“You’re shaking.” 

“So are you.” 

“Hardly.” 

Neither of them speak for a moment. Eren’s weight is a warm comfort on top of him. 

“Do you plan to just stay like this all night?”  


Eren’s answering laugh is all the wonder Levi could ever ask for. 

“Just appreciating the moment.” The words are muffled slightly by his own hair. 

“I’d appreciate it too if you’d actually-”

He cuts himself off with a sharp inhale as Eren grabs his hips, fingers pressing so hard into the bone that Levi is sure bruises will have bloomed there come morning, and lets his cock line up against his entrance, dragging the head over the rim frustratingly slow. 

Levi’s hands twist in the sheets, fingers grappling with the fabric. 

“Should have guessed you’d be a tease,” he mutters, but it’s strained. 

Eren laughs breathily against his back before he feels him pushing in past his rim with one, sure movement. For one long second, all Levi can feel is the burning stretch, the ache, because Eren is a hell of a lot bigger than three fingers. 

The sensation spreads all the way to his fingertips, his curling toes, until he's on fire inside with it. 

After what feels like an age, Levi regains enough control to smother his choked gasp into the pillow - because he’s still not entirely used to this with Eren - and clenches his eyes shut as he feels him move inside until he bottoms out. 

It's curious, because he's fucked people before and been fucked before, but he's never felt this complete, overpowering sense of _good._

Eren moans softly against his shoulder, like he's trying to keep quiet, and he can feel him holding back, letting him adjust to the feeling, and he glares into the pillow because if he’s anymore gentle with him, Levi thinks he might cry or kick him or both. 

It’s sweet, it is, and Levi appreciates it more than he’d thought he would, but right now, he doesn’t want Eren to hold out on him - _for_ him. He wants it to bite and hurt and scratch like they’re fighting on a battlefield and not fucking on a bed. He wants it to be driven with the same kind of heat Eren brings to every fight. So he does the only thing he can think of. 

“Has killing all those civillians fucked up your sex drive too?” 

Eren stills behind him. Levi briefly wonders if he’ll hit him. For a few seconds, the silence is deafening. 

And then, he can practically feel Eren’s expression harden against his back, before he’s pulling out of Levi only to thrust, hard, back in. Levi bites hard on his lip to keep back a moan, thinks _shit shit shit_ when Eren doesn’t relent; keeping his hips in place as he slams back inside for a second time. 

It's so much more than anything he has ever known before; every deep thrust washes away all coherent thought inside his head and every pull back only makes him more susceptible. 

“You can’t,” Eren’s voice is strained, “you can’t just fucking _say_ shit like that, Levi.” 

He doesn’t reply, closes his eyes and revels in the feeling of his breath being punched right out of his chest with every staggering thrust of Eren’s hips. 

Eren pauses only to haul him closer, change the angle slightly, before burying himself inside Levi again and again, fucking him into the mattress just as he'd asked. 

Levi's toes curl and uncurl repeatedly and his hands have twisted creases in the sheets and his nerves have dissipated into complete, undiluted bliss.

He muffles every sound knocked out of him into the sheets as Eren does the same using his shoulder and all he can feel is Eren’s cock against his insides, Eren’s hands holding him close, Eren’s lips hot against his searing skin and it’s filthy and forceful and _glorious._

He feels him press against him, deep and _there,_ and Levi only now realises that the strained, stuttering gasps of _Eren_ are coming from him. 

His heart thumps in his ears, rendering him deaf to most other sound but he knows Eren must be making some sort of noise for the flushes of breath against his back.

Swallowing thickly, Levi feels his orgasm build, heat licking up his thighs, and maybe Eren could tell, he thinks vaguely, because his hand wraps around him, tugging him in time with his thrusts. 

He wastes no time in turning his head, ignoring the painful twinge in his neck at the angle, and kisses Eren messily, biting down on his lip because _fuck finesse,_ he thinks wildly, _fuck it all._

And that’s the only real thought in his mind as he comes into Eren’s hand, relief flooding sweetly through every part of him, and tightening around his cock if Eren's answering moan is anything to go by. 

He feels weightless. 

Eren slows his movements slightly, hesitating, and Levi fights through his post-orgasm haze to pull him in again. 

“If you stop I’ll fucking kill you,” he presses the words into his mouth and kisses him enough to distract them both from possibly the entire world, at this point. 

“Fair enough,” Eren murmurs, swallowing hard, before he thrusts into him again, and again, until his hips stutter with finality against Levi’s own. 

For a long time, they stay like that, chests rising and falling heavily as they lie entwined upon the sheets. Levi’s never felt so out of breath in his entire life. 

He lets Eren bury his face in his neck, leaning his forehead against his shoulder in return. 

Levi’s mind is on a recurring loop of _I can’t believe we just did that_ and _we just did that._ Distantly, he notes the absence of the wave of regret that he’d unconsciously been preparing himself for. 

“Come on,” he says eventually, disentangling himself from Eren’s arms. “I’ll draw us a bath.” 

Eren doesn’t object - looks so fucked out that Levi wonders if he even _could_ \- and they settle beneath the hot water together in a comfortable silence. He watches the steam rise from the surface, let’s Eren hold his hand beneath the water, and wonders how things will change. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god possibly every emotion to exist is divulged in this fic. but here's the last chap anyway + thank you for reading

It goes like this: 

Everyday, Levi trains and talks with the others, discusses matters with Hanji - these range from (Levi) criticising the Military Police to (Hanji) explaining every possible Titan related theory in excruciating detail, works his way through masses of paperwork, absent-mindedly contemplates how the fuck he got himself into this situation while continuing to not do anything to get himself out of it, speculates what Eren’s plan could be with Jean and Connie (they speculate; he pretends not to listen). 

He feels himself slip closer to Eren, even as guilt clouds his thoughts in the harsh light of day. 

Every night, Eren steals inside of his room. They read - sometimes aloud, sometimes in silence, play chess whenever they feel like it (Levi’s shit and Eren had never played before so they’re reasonably well matched), drink tea and smoke cigarettes - Eren’s somehow managed to bring them back from Marley - by the window with cold hands and warm minds. 

Occasionally, Eren will break and cry without explanation and all Levi can do is hold him, because he’s not god and he’s not a fucking miracle worker either. He chalks it up to Eren’s method of relieving the stress that must build up inside him with all those different people, different memories. 

Neither of them mention Liberio, or whatever it is that Eren’s planning to do after, or anything even slightly within the realm of the present or the future, and Levi likes to think of it as an unspoken mutual agreement between the two of them. 

Mostly, their conversation is centred around the past - because Eren’s only got, what, four years left and Levi has that _if he’s lucky._

It’s nice, in a strange way, because talking about the past with Eren isn’t quite like talking about the past with anyone else. 

Presumably because they went through so much of it so closely together but then again - he thinks of Hanji - it can’t be that either. In any case, Levi enjoys it, which surprises him because he’s never enjoyed looking back before. 

They fuck too; it’s all kissing under the sheets and trailing hands over hot skin and moans hushed into shoulders. They don’t do that a lot, though - not as much as he’d thought, at least. 

Tonight, four days after they first slept together, they’re standing by the open window. The sky is as starry as it was on his last night with Isabel and Furlan. 

The quiet flurries of wind burn Levi’s hands cold and he wraps them tighter around his cup, feeling slightly jealous of Eren’s constantly high body temperature. 

Neither of them have spoken in a long time but he doesn’t mind; for now, at least, he’s content to stand here and look out at the world from within their shared view. He thinks there might be a metaphor in that, somewhere. 

“I’m double crossing him, you know.” 

Eren doesn’t look at him when he glances questioningly over; just lifts the cigarette to his mouth. The tip burns bright in the darkness. 

“Who?” 

“Zeke.” 

“Oh.” 

Levi isn’t sure why Eren’s telling him this. He gets the feeling that Eren himself doesn’t know either. 

“Okay,” Levi says after a moment, staring back out at the tops of the rustling forest trees before gesturing towards the cigarette. “Can I?” 

“Sure.” 

Eren hands it to him and he raises it to his lips, inhaling the smoke. It runs bitter over his tongue but it’s not too bad. Better than Erwin’s whiskey had been, at any rate. 

He can feel Eren’s gaze on the side of his face but he keeps his eyes trained on the sky and, after a while, he looks away. 

“Didn’t realise you knew how to smoke.” 

“I don’t.” 

There’s a small pause. 

“Fast learner, then.” 

“Why, just because you half choked to death at first?” 

Levi doesn’t have to move his eyes to know that Eren’s smiling. He looks so achingly beautiful when he smiles. 

“Not exactly. Thought I might cough up a lung, though.” 

His mouth turns upwards in the hint of a smile as the mental images flick through his mind. 

“I can imagine.” 

“Hmm.” 

Comfortable silence descends over them once more. Levi takes a few more drags before handing the cigarette back to Eren; his fingers are warm against his own cold ones. 

Sighing heavily, he finishes the last of his tea and places the empty cup on the window sill, dangerously close to the edge. 

And then, because he’s always kind of wondered and the thought strikes him before he can actually think about it, he asks, “What does it feel like to be a Titan?” 

Eren’s gaze is heavy on his face again. For a few seconds, Levi thinks he won’t answer. 

“Fucking scary when I have you flying around the back of my neck.” 

He lets out a bark of surprised laughter and Eren joins him a second later, cigarette hanging loosely out of his mouth. 

“Really?” 

“Fuck, yeah. Used to always clean especially well on the days when I knew I would be shifting later. Didn’t put it past you to slice off my nape, make it look like an accident, if I hadn’t dusted properly.” 

Levi snorts, turning his head away to look down at the ground. He likes Eren’s humour; it can be startlingly similar to his own. Perhaps they’ve just been through enough shit together. 

“It’s kinda strange,” Eren admits quietly, long after the last of their laughter has faded. “At first, I felt sort of light-headed. I think ‘cause most of your senses get disrupted and fucked around and you have to adjust to yourself all over again. But then...I don’t know. I grew into it, I s’pose. Kinda like an extra limb, or something, you learn to control it. That’s what I spent a lot of time doing in Liberio.” 

Eren’s Titan in Liberio had been something else to behold entirely and he nods, but doesn’t say anything yet. 

Listening to Eren speak like this is quite possibly one of his favourite things, he’s discovered, but the times when it actually happens are few and far between. 

“Did you want to?” he asks suddenly and his heart jumps in warning in his chest but he presses on. Not like he’ll get another chance, anyway. “Did you want to go to Liberio?” 

Levi keeps his face turned firmly away from him and, this time, Eren’s quiet for so long that he almost thinks he didn’t hear him. 

“It wasn’t like that, Levi,” he says softly. Levi keeps his face impassive. “It was something I knew I had to do. I didn’t have a choice.” 

“I know that,” he points out dismissively. “I’m asking if you wanted to. You still have feelings, Eren, even if you are part Titan.” 

Eren sighs and Levi hears the weight of the world that rests upon his shoulders in it. 

“It was like...remember that day on the beach?” 

He nods, absent-mindedly wondering where he’s going with this, and Eren continues. 

“Remember that big rock that we climbed up and took turns diving into the water from?” 

He nods again. Personally, he hadn’t done it but he remembers watching the others jumping from afar and how Connie and Sasha had ended up pushing Jean off. 

“Well, it was kind of like that,” Eren rushes on like he knows Levi is about to question it. “You know you have to do it, and you know that it would be so much easier to just dive in and get it over with. But you start to think, like wouldn’t it be easier to just wade in instead? You’d reach the same endpoint, right? But you’re still on top of the rock and logically it would be faster to jump and you have to get down _somehow_ but you’re still- you’re still _scared_ and it just-” 

He cuts himself off with a swallow and somewhere along the way Levi has turned to look at him and he keeps on looking now; studying the clenched line of his jaw, the bow of his head, the careless grip he has on the cigarette. 

Neither of them speak for a moment.

“I don’t know if I wanted to do it, Levi,” he answers lowly. “But I’d probably do it again. Not because I enjoyed it or anything fucked up like that. Just because it was something I had to do.” 

Levi nods slowly. 

“Because of the other people? Their memories in your head?” 

Eren shrugs and takes a long drag before exhaling. 

“Guess so.” He pauses. “There’s not a lot of them, by the way. You make it sound like there’s a whole gang up there.” 

“Oh,” he smiles slightly. “I see. Just your dad, right?” 

“Grisha, yeah.” He nods, expression hardening as he glances out across the skyline. “There’s a few others, maybe. It’s hard to tell sometimes.” 

Levi watches him, feeling torn between pressing further out of curiosity and holding back. He doesn’t want Eren to retreat back inside his shell again. 

Settling for somewhere in between, he looks away and asks, “So you just have all of his memories?” 

“Yeah.” 

Levi raises his eyebrows. “Isn’t that kinda shit? That you have memories of your parents fucking or whatever.” 

Eren snorts inelegantly, as he had hoped he would. 

“So vulgar.” He smiles bitterly and taps his cigarette against the stone. Fiery ashes fall from it. “But no. Those ones, the unnecessary ones, they’re not- they’re under the surface, if you like. I have them and sometimes...sometimes I see them when I can’t control it, like if I’m sleeping. They’re there but I’d have to search for them, y’know?” 

Levi nods again and looks back out at the sky. The stars are endless. 

“And someone will get your memories?” 

Truthfully, he still doesn’t understand this whole thing. He’s left it to Hanji and Armin to research. 

“Yeah...they’ll see it all.” He sounds acrimonious, but without the bite. “The fall of Maria, every battle, training, Shiganshina, Mikasa, Armin. You.” 

_Oh._

Levi swallows and his stomach clenches, even though he doesn’t particularly feel anything towards the implication. Not as though he’ll ever meet whoever it is, anyway. 

“You have four years, right?” 

“Yeah.” Neither of them say anything and, for a few minutes, the only sound is Eren exhaling smoke and the rustling of trees. “Unless someone finds a cure.” 

“We can hope.” 

They close the window shortly after and retire onto the bed instead, where he tells him about his plans to deep clean the entire base and Eren, bless him, listens attentively and warms Levi’s hands between his own, before - upon the earliest signs of a lightening sky - he leaves him to creep back into his cell below. 

The last waking thought that Levi has is that he’s getting far too comfortable with this. 

“Okay, try it again. This time go for a more acute angle.” 

“That’s not possible.” 

“Hm, you’re right. You’re already acute enough.” 

“What?” 

“A _cute._ _Cute._ Heavens above, Levi. Trying to flirt with you is like trying to flirt with a tree.” 

“Then...don’t,” he points out, slightly affronted. 

_“Someone_ has to,” declares Hanji, snatching the beaker from his hands and pouring it into a steaming liquid themself. “I’ve told you this hundreds of times before, Levi - you’re a catch. I’m determined not to let you go to waste.” 

Behind them, Jean snorts. 

“Why would I be going to waste?” Levi asks, feeling highly confused as he watches them rush to their notepad and scrawl something onto the paper there. 

“Armin! You were right. Titan blood...successfully preserved...when added with 100 grams of nonaqueous acids...exhibit A, four-metre titan blood sustained with sulfur trioxide…” 

Levi raises his eyebrows, eyes trailing over the lab desk dubiously. 

“And this will help us, how?” 

“Oh,” they look up at him and frown. “It won’t. Just background research for entertainment purposes.” 

He sighs heavily and sits down on a chair. It’s his own fault for thinking Hanji had called him down here because of a ground-breaking experiment.

“What was I saying?” They push their lab glasses up onto their head and look around as if the answer will appear in front of them. 

“How Levi is a wasted catch,” supplies Jean, and shoots him a wink when he stares at him, unimpressed. 

“Ah, of course. Well, you know, you’re not bad looking, Levi. Rather cute in a sort of dangerous, churchboy turned rogue way. Seriously. You should get out to a brothel one of these days.” 

“You tell me this at least twice every three months.” 

“And yet you _still_ don’t take my advice.” 

“Exactly my point.” 

“Commander, I think we’re done here,” interrupts Connie, showing them their cork-sealed flasks. 

“Oh, good. Thanks for helping me, you can go - you too, Armin. No, really, go, if I make you stay any longer I’ll feel like I’ve been possessed by Erwin.” 

They shudder slightly and the three of them hastily exit the room. Levi listens to their voices fade and watches Hanji as they stack away a few questionably smoking sealed containers. 

“Do you need any help?” 

They laugh. “As if you’d touch any of this stuff. Don’t think I don’t know you, Levi.” 

He nods and relents, settling further into his chair as he pokes at a peeling floor tile with his foot. 

Hanji isn’t a taxing person to be around, not at all, and he appreciates that about them. They’ll be content to let him merely exist around them. 

“I mean it, Levi.” 

He looks up, half expecting them to have stopped in their movements, but they continue to file away various equipment, making small notes every so often. 

“I know you had feelings for Eren,” they say and he feels a surge of gratitude that they don’t sound particularly reprimanding nor worried. “And I know they weren’t the kind of feelings that can go away overnight. I don’t expect you to talk to me about it, of course, but this must be harder for you.”

They pause, scribbling something on a scrap of paper and humming slightly. 

“It’s alright…” Levi says uselessly. 

They wave away his words and he can’t honestly say he blames them.

“I really do think you would benefit from going out and meeting someone. It’s nothing to be ashamed about, by the way. I do it - Jean and Connie do it. I think you would enjoy it if you actually let yourself. Besides, there are plenty of people who would be lining up to grab a piece of that Ackerman ass.” 

He snorts and shakes his head slightly in disbelief. 

“Thanks, four-eyes. I appreciate it. But I’m fine.” 

They look at him, then, narrowing their eyes, and chewing slightly on their lip.

He wonders what their reaction would be if he told them. Anger? Betrayal? Disgust? 

His chest twinges painfully at the thought and a sudden wave of guilt washes over him, so heavily that his pulse quickens with it. But what he and Eren are doing…

It’s separate. It’s something beyond war and sides and enemies. It doesn’t concern anyone but themselves. 

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll think about it.” 

They brighten immediately, tugging their glasses back over their face with a snap, and nod. 

“Alright,” they agree. “That’s the best I can ask for.” 

He’s halfway out the door when they call his name again and he turns around. 

“But y’know, if you ever need a more friendly face…” 

For a moment, he has no clue what they’re talking about. Then he spots their hand sweeping across one of the lab tables suggestively and his face breaks into a rare smile. 

“Four-eyes, I’d let a Titan chew on me before sleeping with you.” 

They throw back their head and laugh loudly and Levi walks away with shouts of ‘I’m joking, Levi! _Joking!’_ following him. 

But their words - or rather, what he took from them - stew in his mind for two days and three nights before he bites the bullet and decides to bring it up with Eren. 

“Do you feel guilty?” 

The words come out slightly blended, rushed, and he blames the feeling of Eren’s cock against his insides for figuratively loosening his lips. Which. 

Eren stills inside of him and Levi can imagine his expression; brows knitted together in utter confusion, eyes narrowing as he tries to formulate a response. His hands stop moving to hover over his hips and for a few seconds the only sound is their heavy breathing. 

“What?” 

In hindsight, Levi probably could have chosen a better time. 

“You feel guilty?” Eren asks when he doesn’t reply right away, and his frown deepens as he watches. 

“No,” he tries to smooth it over because he _doesn’t,_ at least not in the way Eren’s thinking. “No, I just. I wanted to know if you did.” 

“You wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t feel like that already,” he snaps the words out, pushing himself up to lean over him on one arm.

Levi refrains from rolling his eyes with difficulty. Eren can be so _stubborn_ sometimes. 

“Well, I don’t.” 

Eren just looks at him, raising his eyebrows a bit in disbelief, and Levi almost groans out loud because he’s painfully hard and they were in the middle of sex and Eren’s clearly not going to resume until he answers and he _really_ should have planned this out. 

“I don’t feel guilty because,” he frowns slightly, trying to decipher his thoughts. “Because I don’t think of this as...as…,” he casts around for a phrase. 

“Fraternising with the enemy?” Eren guesses and he nods, although slightly skeptical. 

“Yeah. That. I think of it as separate and I only wanted to know if you thought of it like that too.” He pauses. Sighs. Goosebumps have risen on his arms since Eren’s moved away. 

“I’m sorry it didn’t come off like that,” he mutters quietly. “I’m still clueless with all of this.”

Eren nods but his expression doesn’t change. Levi shifts uncomfortably beneath him. 

“Okay. I don’t, though.” 

“Oh.” 

Levi doesn’t know why the words come as a surprise; it might be the slightly hard tone in which Eren says them, or the fact that he’s still frowning, or maybe, even, because Levi does feel slightly guilty and he had hoped, selfishly, that Eren would too. 

“But you have Zeke. He’s your brother.” 

“It’s different,” he shrugs casually and Levi feels another prick of irritation. “But I can get why you would. I mean, these are your comrades.” 

Levi nods automatically and then, when Eren shifts as if to move again, he stops him with a hand on his arm. 

The meaning of what he’s just said catches up to him with the similar feeling of his ODM gear getting caught on something mid-flight. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

His face remains indifferent but the underlying bite beneath his words gives his aggravation away. 

Eren looks up at him and Levi would believe his guiltlessly startled expression had his previous sentence not been intended so obviously to provoke him. 

“Nothing. Just that I can understand why you would feel guilty because you’re betraying your friends and putting them all in possible danger.” 

Levi stares at him, staggered. 

“Why are you saying this?”

“I’m just pointing out how I could understand if you _did_ feel guilty. But you don’t. So.” 

Insulted, he opens his mouth to let out a tirade of angry and derogatory reasons why Eren - of all people - has no right to say that, before closing it again just as quickly. 

_Oh._

It feels as though someone has shattered a pane of glass that was previously shielding his eyes. 

_Oh. He’s hurt,_ Levi realises. His eyes trail over Eren’s face as he slowly recognises tiny shreds that stand as evidence. 

He’s hurt and he’s lashing out in defence because he thinks that Levi still exclusively sees him as the dangerous war criminal who betrayed them all and murdered countless people and _for the love of Maria,_ it’s all so false that Levi is torn between punching Eren and himself. 

“Eren.” He tries to make amends the best he can and runs the pad of his little finger down the dip of Eren’s collarbone just to have something else to look at. “I don’t feel guilty because when it’s like this…” 

He pauses and swallows slightly. _God damn, why is this so difficult._ Eren watches him without offering any sign of support. 

“When it’s like this, I don’t think of you as humanity’s hope or whatever the fuck that involves.” _Eloquent._ “Maybe it’s for my own peace of mind, I don’t know, but here...I just think of you as Eren.” 

He takes a deep breath and hesitates. If only he was as good as Eren at this. Verbal reassurance has never been a particularly strong point of his. 

Eren grabs his hand that had been tracing the delicate knots of his clavicle and brings it up to his mouth instead. Levi watches as he brushes his lips against his skin, an unspoken wish for him to continue, and kisses each of his knuckles gently. 

Levi feels as though he’s made of fine dust, like any firmer touch would simply wash him away. 

“And I think that’s why I will be able to cope when you leave. Because you will have changed. Back to how you were in Liberio or on the airship.” 

Eren watches him, expression unreadable, but he doesn’t still in his soft caressing movements and so he takes that as an indication to continue. 

“I’m sorry. I hope that you think of me like that too. Perhaps it will make everything easier for us, in the end.” 

His heart is beating like the spray of a machine gun. Eren looks away from him and trails his fingers over Levi’s stomach, clearly deep in thought. 

“Yeah,” he says eventually, voice so quiet that he has to strain to hear him, before swallowing and nodding. “I understand. But I think...I think I lo-”

Levi surges up, a flood of fear unleashing in his chest as he does the only thing that seems right and kisses Eren, fast and strong. Eren doesn’t move for a second, probably slightly taken aback, but then he leans into him and Levi feels a warm hand move around to support his back. 

“Don’t,” he whispers against his lips. “Don’t say it. I can’t hear it, not like this.” 

He doesn’t reply; just stills for a heartbeat or two before licking inside his mouth again and clasping Levi’s hand tighter within his own where they’re pressed between their chests. 

He lets him back him down against the pillows and sighs shakily into his mouth as he starts to move inside of him once more, slow and steady like the constant push and pull of the sea. 

Drawing him deeper inside his mouth, Levi kisses Eren harder just to deflect himself from the poignant emotions that are threatening to well up inside of him. 

It all seems to be drawing to a close so suddenly, like the last grains of sand in an hourglass, and Eren’s words have stirred in him a keen sadness that he can’t seem to tamp down on. 

His hips shift in so deeply, angled against the right place, and Levi kind of wants to flip them over and change the pace but in the end, he lets Eren fuck him like this because Eren is usually better at judging what it is that they both need and it feels fucking blissful to let himself sink beneath his usual surface. 

Eren’s voice is so quiet when he speaks that Levi almost misses it, almost lets it get lost between their guttural moans and heavy breathing and gasps of names. 

“I’m gonna miss you.” 

He had pulled away from his mouth seconds earlier to press wet kisses beneath his jaw and he murmurs the words there now. Levi feels the soft flutter of lashes against his neck and then a dampness that he knows can only be from tears. 

He swallows, hard, but the lump in his throat doesn’t go away. 

And all Levi can do is wind his fingers tighter in his hair and tilt his face to kiss him harder and blink away the _stupid,_ fucking tears that are gathering beneath his own eyelids.

Eren keeps fucking him with that kind of tender roughness; easing every slamming thrust with a feather light brush of his thumb against Levi’s cheekbones or graze of knuckles against his trembling stomach. 

It all feels so good, so overpoweringly good, that he can only hold onto Eren and pray, for the first and quite possibly only time in his life, that they’ll be alright.

Even if it’s just for this last week, even if it’s futile, even if nobody is listening; he prays nonetheless. 

“So I said to them, like, I will fucking take the lot and if they have any more problems, I’ll feed them to Sawney and Bean. ‘Course, that was before someone went and killed them.” 

Eren laughs like he’s just said the funniest thing in the world and honestly, Levi thinks that maybe he has. Explains why he himself is laughing, anyway. 

“You did all that for more bleach?” 

“Eren. The place was filthy. I’d sell _you_ if it meant I could give it a good scrub.” 

Eren snorts and grabs the wine bottle right out of his hands, almost spilling it on his sheets - Levi briefly sees God - before swigging it back with a large gulp. 

The days have passed in a sweet, slightly melancholic haze. Ever since Eren had almost told him that he loved him, they’ve reached an undiscussed agreement to skirt around subjects like that. 

It’s slightly wistful but extremely relieving and Levi, at least, is content to cherish these moments without reaching any potential pinnacle in their relationship. 

This is all too transient, too fleeting, for him to allow himself to start thinking in that way. Truthfully, he doesn’t know if, given the chance, he would ever be able to stop. 

Tonight, Eren had persuaded him into opening one of the bottles of wine that had been left in the kitchen - presumably by Connie or Jean or maybe Hanji. 

In his defence, Levi had been reluctant at first; he hasn’t rejected drinking liquor, per se, and he can handle it well enough but he’s not prone to it and tends to avoid it as a general rule. 

Still, Eren had asked him to and it could easily be the last time either of them will get to, given what’s drawing ever closer, so he’d relented. _For old time’s sake._

“I don’t get it. Floch told me that everyone was doing it, like it’s...like it’s some kind of mass breeding ground or something. Fuck knows.” 

Levi hides a small smile against the neck of the bottle and clumsily brushes a few stray strands of hair away from Eren’s eyes. 

His head is a pleasant weight on his stomach. 

“Yeah. He’s right. Nothing like an impending threat of death to get everyone shacking up.”

He feels the vibrations when Eren laughs. 

Levi dips out his tongue against the bottle's rim, soaking up the taste without actually drinking any more. 

“Not everyone, though. Surely.” 

Eren smiles at the ceiling as his fingers trace unintelligible shapes on the bone of Levi’s ankle, arm reaching over to where his legs are drawn up. 

“A fair amount.” Levi makes a non-committal noise. “I’ve always got the impression that Hanji and Arlert had something going on.”

Eren laughs again, looking up at him to wrap his spare hand around the bottle and take it back. 

“Armin and Hanji, really?” 

“Yeah.” He glances down at Eren and tugs his hair between two fingers pointedly. “Even you did it, Eren.” 

Frowning up at him, he finishes swallowing wine and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Levi absent-mindedly wonders if he could discreetly wash it with the spare bar of soap he keeps in his nightstand. _He’d probably notice,_ he thinks rather sadly. 

“When? And this doesn’t count, by the way.” 

“I know that,” he resists rolling his eyes, “I meant you and Historia. When you two were together.” 

“Oh.” 

Eren lapses into silence, a thoughtful expression on his face. Levi sneaks the bottle back from his lax grip. 

“We were never together, though. Not really.” 

“Oh?” 

Levi makes sure to phrase it as a question to push him on, because he’s always secretly wondered about the two of them and what better disguise to ask it under than gratuitous amounts of alcohol? 

“Yeah. We were just spending lots of time together anyway and in similar situations - because of a sudden load of responsibility not ‘cause she’s, like, secretly a Titan shifter or something - and I think, for the most part, we were both pretending it was someone else.” 

Levi doesn’t say anything; it’s not the answer he expected, at any rate. 

Feeling a tiny budding sense of relief that he refuses to divulge, he concentrates on trying to get his eyes to focus properly and waits for Eren to break the silence again. 

“What about you and Erwin? Did you two ever…” 

His voice tails off but his eyes have turned to Levi and it lets him know of the genuine curiosity behind the question. 

They hadn’t, is the short answer. 

The long answer is Levi thinking late at night of what could potentially happen between them if they both survive long enough, Erwin being a strong source of comfort in his loneliness, hours on end spent together, lingering glances - all accumulating into an unsatisfyingly sparse _maybe._

But it’s all rather pointless now, anyway. 

“Oh,” he starts slightly, realising that he’s been quiet for some time and Eren’s still looking at him for an answer. “No, we never did. Sometimes, I thought...maybe. But.” 

He shrugs into the darkness and it strikes him suddenly how bleak it all must be to have reached the point of discussing an old friend’s death with such nonchalance that it sounds more like a missed opportunity. Thankfully, the liquor softens the grimness of the thought. 

“It would never have been anyway. It wasn’t...it wasn’t right.” 

Eren nods - as if he could possibly understand Levi’s drunken rambling - and the atmosphere has changed to a heavier one, which makes discomfort twinge in his chest. 

He tries to reel it back in. 

And I know Mikasa and Jean used to-” 

He doesn’t get any further than that because Eren chokes around another gulp of wine, sitting up so fast that he’s almost a blur. Or maybe Levi’s just drunker than he thought. 

_“What?_ Mikasa and Jean?” 

Levi studies him, faintly amused at his indignation. 

“Yes. From what I’ve heard on the grapevine they’re just friends now, though.” 

He neglects to tell Eren that the grapevine is actually Jean, who takes it upon himself to regularly update them all of their relationship. 

Levi has tried to deceive him into doing it whenever Mikasa’s within ear shot - just to see what would happen - but unfortunately he seems to have some sort of sixth sense for that. 

Eren looks like he’s either about to cry or run out of the room and find one of the two. Most likely Jean. Levi holds on to his wrist just in case. 

“Mikasa and _Jean?_ That bastard...when did this happen?” he demands, turning to Levi with an appalled look on his face. 

“When you were in Liberio, I think. Did your eye just twitch?” 

_“No.”_

Neither of them say anything for a while and then Eren sighs heavily, laying his head down again on Levi’s stomach. 

“I suppose a lot changed while I was away,” he says quietly and Levi dips his tongue into the rim of the bottle again, staring into the darkness without replying. 

He doesn’t need to; the answer is evident. 

The taste has faded from his mouth by the time either of them next speak. 

“Levi?” 

“Hm.” 

“So you liked my letters?” 

Levi rolls his eyes and takes a gulp of the wine because fucking hell, if they’re going down _this_ road again, he’ll need it. 

“Idiot. I already told you I did.” 

“Yeah but…” Eren’s voice drops off as he gently scrapes his nails over Levi’s ankle. “I wanna know what you were like when you read them.” 

He’s still slurring his words slightly and it’s just enough to assure Levi that he’s definitely not sober. 

_Here’s hoping he won’t remember this in the morning then,_ Levi thinks before answering. 

“I looked forward to them. I tried to find a pattern in their delivery times but there didn’t seem to be.” He isn't sure why he’s telling Eren this; he’s probably not sober, either. “But when they did arrive, I would leave them unopened for a few days. I was still fucking pissed, obviously.”

Eren huffs out a breath of air that acts as a laugh. Levi continues and he’s sure the alcohol must have loosened his tongue because he doesn’t even feel all that nervous. 

“So then, when I did open them, it was usually during the night. At first, your letters made me more angry because...well, you wouldn’t talk about anything I cared about. Or, things I thought I didn’t care about, anyway. I wanted to know why you left, not how different the people look over there.” 

“Hey, I remember that one,” Eren pinches his ankle briefly. “I said that you look even prettier than all of them.” 

Levi does _not_ blush. Conveniently, the darkness veils it well. 

“I didn’t appreciate it.” 

“Then why have you remembered it?”

Eren sounds smug. Levi grinds his knuckles into his scalp. He squeaks embarrassingly loudly. 

“I didn’t know your voice could go that high.”

“Shut up. Must you always resort to violence?” He pulls his wrist down to hold against his chest. 

“You’re one to talk.” 

“Touché.” 

“It’s true.” 

“That’s generally what touché means.” 

“Oh.” 

In the silence that follows, Levi looks down at him. He can just make out the shape of his face in the dim moonlight. Eren looks back at him and Levi wonders what he sees. 

“I’m leaving soon,” Eren tells him, voice nothing more than a murmur. 

He looks away, swallowing the lump that’s risen in his throat at the words.

“I know.” 

“So much will change.” 

“I know that too.” 

“I really wish you would let me tell you how I feel.” 

Eren’s gaze is white hot against his face. Levi just squeezes his hand and keeps his eyes on the opposite wall. 

“I can’t.” 

It’s the one thing he refuses to grant himself. Somehow, this would all be so much harder if he did. The silence stretches out. 

“But I do, Levi. I want you to know that.” 

His voice is so soft that Levi has to close his eyes against it. 

He doesn’t want to let him; he doesn’t want to know how Eren’s voice will fold itself around the three words, where his voice will deepen and dip between the crevices, if he’ll say it again and again, against his lips or muffled into his hair or pressed into his skin until it’s tattooed there. 

He doesn’t want to because, if he hears it, he’ll never be able to forget it. The weight of it will drag him back to this day, to these days, until he might as well be dead for all he’s living. 

And Levi is stronger than that. 

“I already do.” 

It’s all he can offer and it’s laughably meagre and his chest tightens with the notion but Eren takes it - takes all he can give him - without asking for more. Levi’s heart hurts. 

He nods and holds his wrist and presses feather light kisses to the inside of it. Levi wonders if he can feel his pulse beneath his lips. 

That night, Eren leaves so late that it’s almost morning and he doesn’t rest until he sees Hanji to ensure that no suspicion has been raised. 

Inevitably, the days pass by like pages flicking through a book. 

It’s all too fast and he can never quite remember how they spend their time and he finds himself desperately clinging on to every last minute. But, ineluctably, Eren’s last night arrives like a storm rolling in. 

His last day feels strange. Hanji and the others are none the wiser and yet Levi can barely look any of them in the eye, he’s so overcome with guilt. 

_It has nothing to do with them,_ he reminds himself for what feels like the billionth time. 

Distantly, a small part of him is inundated with relief. 

It’s almost a remedy - knowing that, after this, Eren will leave and they’ll bury this time in the past and he can go back to being as blissfully ignorant as everyone else. 

He wonders if this was how Eren felt in the weeks leading up to his desertion for Marley. 

But then night arrives, bringing with it the creak of his door that’s become so meaningful these past three weeks, and the relief is washed away in a cascade of other emotions. 

Eren wastes no time in kissing him, deep and slow, and Levi doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything so bitterly glorious in his entire life. Every swipe of the tongue is a plea for so much more and every urgent touch is an answer. 

They barely make it to the bed. Eren presses him against the desk and sucks him off there, thumbing over his leaking tip before taking him inside his mouth, cock nudging against the entrance to his throat, and this time it’s unrefined and messy and _wonderful._

Levi throws an arm over his face to shield himself because it’s all so much and he has to find a way to disperse it _somehow._ Eren’s fingers are gripping his thighs tightly and he’s so rough with his movements, yet Levi wants it like that; thinks they both need this as a distraction. 

Eren opens him with one finger as he does so, probably just to overwhelm him more and it works; bright ribbons of light explode beneath his eyelids as he brushes against somewhere inside of him, keeps holding pressure there, and swallows around his cock at the same time. 

Eren barely gives him any time to recover once he finally comes, just gathers him up in his arms before he can protest and sets him down on the bed, kissing him so frantically that Levi can hardly process it. 

But, when he does, he pushes back with the same intensity and shoves Eren’s shirt over his head, skating his hands over every inch of his body, as though he has no other reason to live if not for this. 

He moves into Eren’s lap and rides him there, lifting his hips only to grind them back down again in small circles that are as slow as they are frantic. 

Eren’s forehead rests against his shoulder, as though neither of them can quite look at the other, and his moans blossom against the skin there. 

Levi can feel him where he’s buried inside, his own body squeezing tight around him as if to pull him in deeper. The drag inside is beautiful and Levi leans back instead of moving up, supported by his hands on Eren’s shoulders. Every inch burns slightly as he sinks down again and again but he chases the sensation as if his brain has shorted out with the gloriousness of it all. 

And there’s heat behind it, blazing, perihelion, like stars colliding together, like a supernova, like a cataclysmic explosion, like a black hole - everything else burned out of existence. 

There’s no Titans and there’s no war and there’s no Marley and they’re not doing anything else but this, and there’s no bed beneath them and no Hanji and no Erwin and no _anyone_ who’s not Eren. Because it’s all Eren. All breathtakingly Eren. 

And Levi can’t _think,_ can’t feel anything besides Eren’s hands all over him, Eren’s cock inside him, Eren’s lips against his own. Never wants to feel anything else that’s not this. 

When he tires and his calves start to burn, Eren flips them over and slams back inside him with a reverence that contradicts his roughness and Levi just tightens his legs around his waist and pulls him in deeper. 

Eren says his name again and again, like it’s all that he knows, and Levi closes his eyes against the scorching heat of it all, wonders if this is what it feels like at the end of the world. 

His mouth is hot against the column of Levi’s throat as he plants wet kisses there and he arches his back further, grips Eren’s shoulders so tightly that it must hurt, works himself down deeper onto his cock just to push them both further. Further towards the precipice they’re teetering on. 

When he comes, it’s as though he shatters utterly into pieces. 

After, once the heat burns itself out of their obligatory parting sex and they’ve retired beneath the sheets to just hold each other, Eren turns to him. 

“You’re probably going to hate me again in the morning,” he says and, to Levi’s faint amusement, doesn’t look all that bothered about it. 

“Perhaps.” 

Truthfully, he isn’t sure. His entire perception of Eren could have shifted again by then. 

Eren sighs and moves onto his back to look up at the ceiling. Levi stays watching him, fingers tracing over the skin of his chest. 

“I’m glad we did this,” Eren admits quietly. “Or, I don’t know. I knew I wanted to do this before but I’m also happy...I’m also happy because it changed my understanding of you.” 

Levi tenses, almost starts to withdraw because _shit_ and _what does that mean,_ but Eren shakes his head in correction. 

“Not like that. I meant...I learned about you. Maybe you didn’t even realise it was happening.” 

“I didn’t.” 

Levi tilts his head against the pillow and hopes Eren will continue without him having to ask. 

“I guess I got to know you - just you, without it being a captain or humanity’s strongest thing.” 

Eren frowns slightly and Levi silently urges him to keep going, watching his face with dark eyes. 

“Like what?” 

“Well,” he exhales and Levi feels it in his fingertips. “Like how you prefer cleaning at night because you can’t sleep anyway and there’s less people around then. Or why you hold your cups from the rim. How you like physical contact but don’t know how to ask for it. That when this is all over you would like to own a tea shop - but you don’t enjoy talking about that that much because I suppose survival is too optimistic for a cynic like you.” 

Eren laughs quietly to himself and Levi stays silent. His heart is thudding in his chest. He’s stared at Eren for so long that dark spots are beginning to creep into his vision. 

It hits him, then, much too late, that Eren _loves_ him - even if he hasn’t let him say it out loud - that he’s seen all of Levi and decided that his shit was worth putting up with. 

This whole time, he had thought, somehow, that he had still been guarded around him. 

And it’s only now that he realises he wasn’t. 

“You only drink black tea because you couldn’t afford milk or sugar when you were younger and became used to it like that. How people tend to write you off as cold and emotionless because, well, you kinda are - no offence - but when you get comfortable around someone you tend to show your emotions more and more.”

There’s a pause, in which Eren frowns in thought and Levi contemplates how he got so lucky and so damn _un_ lucky at the same time. 

“And that you most definitely have an undiscovered cleaning kink.” 

It’s so out of place with the tenderness of the moment that Levi can’t help the bark of surprised laughter that escapes him and turns his head to hide it in the pillow instead. 

When he peeks up again, Eren’s smile is like the sun and in his eyes are the stars. 

He brushes one hand through Levi’s hair, almost cradling his head, and his fingertips reach down to lightly scrape against the fine hairs of his undercut. 

They stay like that for a long time, until their smiles have faded, before he speaks again. 

“I used to always look up to you - and in a lot of ways, I still do - because you seemed so untouchable and, like, unfazed by everything. No matter what happened, who was killed, you never seemed to lash out like the rest of us did.” 

There’s a deep, penetrating sadness residing in Eren’s eyes. Levi shifts closer into his warmth. 

A part of him almost wants to laugh this off, reach over and cuff Eren on the back of his head, tell him to stop looking so sorrowful because, god, they’ve all been through too much. 

But most of him just wants to listen. 

“And I wanted to be like that too, Levi. I think I might have almost been jealous - it sounds fucked up, I know, but I wanted to be so unfeeling too.” 

Eren shakes his head in dejection like, somehow, he still can’t believe it. His voice is shaking slightly. 

Levi watches him and there’s a lump in his throat and a hard stone wedged somewhere in his chest and he almost can’t understand what Eren’s saying. 

“But then, in the time between the day we found the sea and Liberio, I realised that you weren’t unfazed or unfeeling or any of those things. That you never had been and it - it sounds kinda ridiculous, considering. But it broke my heart to realise that. To know that you’d been hurting all along - probably more than any of us. I still don’t why, but it did.” 

The breath has caught somewhere in his throat but he doesn’t attempt to clear it. 

He’s never felt so exposed in his entire life. It’s not a bad feeling, exactly, but it’s overwhelming. 

“Eren…” 

Levi doesn’t even mean to say it. He wonders if they’ve spent so much time together that Eren’s name has replaced exhaling. 

_How inconvenient,_ he thinks, and then, a second later, _shut the fuck up._

He’s taken aback, though, that Eren saw those parts of him. That it hurt him to think of Levi hurting. It just...it makes his worn out soul lighten somewhat. 

Eren doesn’t look at him, glancing down to the small space between them as he huffs out a breathy laugh. 

“Kinda shitty it took me that long. Sorry.” 

“Fucking hell, don’t be.” 

It’s slightly crude and it breaks whatever had been building around them but it’s softened with stunned disbelief and it makes Eren properly laugh and look at him again and that’s all that really matters, he thinks. 

He kisses him then, out of a selfish desire for more, and Eren kisses back, slowly, working his tongue into his mouth as Levi winds his body even closer around him. 

They don’t do anything more than that for the rest of the night.

Later, when Eren’s curled himself around Levi to sleep - for the first and last time because, despite Levi’s initial arguments, Eren had pointed out that ‘if you think I’m gonna fuck off back to my cell to brood before I leave in three hours, you clearly don’t know me at all’ - he entwines one hand tightly with Eren’s where it’s lying on his stomach. 

He supposes it’s fitting, that the one person he can feel this way with is the one person he can never be with. It’s cruel and maybe slightly ironic and more than a little irritating, but it’s fitting nonetheless. 

Levi wonders if Eren will ever see him again and, supposing he does, if it will just be his body. The lack of feeling that the thought stirs is twisted. 

Eventually, he relinquishes his grip on consciousness and relaxes into Eren’s warmth and he knows they don’t have forever but they have now and that’s enough. 

He dreams a dream about the Underground, which he forgets upon waking. 

Morning brings cold, empty sheets, sunlight showing him the dust in the air, lukewarm tea and the feeling of loss. 

He stares out at the window from his bed, allows himself these few minutes to reconcile with his memories before he finally buries them, and wonders if Eren’s looking at the same sunrise he is now. 

Part of him still can’t wrap his head around everything that’s happened. 

There are some things Levi knows he won’t ever forget. Flying through the Underground with Isabel and Furlan, the heady feeling of his horse carrying him through the Wall to the outside, Erwin’s voice reading aloud on the nights when neither of them could sleep, the sand beneath his feet for the first time. 

And now, with Eren; the cautious way in which he held him, the sound of his voice on the cusp of sleep, the all encompassing feeling of burying his head in the space between his neck and his shoulder. 

A sharp, almost forgotten memory penetrates his mind, along with the attached emotion, of Eren half-smiling at him from over the pillows, fingertips hot against Levi’s arm. 

It’s maudlin.

The realisation of that - the realisation that he’s sitting here, wallowing in self pity and fucking _pining_ \- is what spurs him into burying it all deep inside of him, beneath everything else, each last slow touch and hushed word and wistful feeling engulfed by his own sheer will to live.

He doesn’t check for any kind of letter or note as he gets up, because he knows that Eren wouldn’t do that. He’s not exactly the same person he was for all of these nights; he’s changed again. This time, he isn’t angered as much as he is sadly grateful. 

Time passes in the form of a dull headache, a knot of nerves expanding in his stomach and fatigued sadness residing in his chest. 

He waits, sweeping his floor as something to do, for a worryingly long time before finally, _finally,_ Hanji runs into his door with a crash. 

They locate the handle a second later, bursting in with such frantic energy that the door almost bounces off its hinges. 

_"Levi,”_ they’re panting slightly and their glasses are pushed up onto their head. “He’s escaped. Eren’s escaped.” 

For a moment, the only thing that Levi is aware of is a sudden onslaught of forgotten emotions. 

They cascade into his mind like water breaking a dam, feelings of unrivaled resentment and betrayal that have been suppressed so long they seem to come back tenfold. 

Reminders of his promise to Erwin, of Eren’s plans and the danger he poses, flood back with such stunning vitality that, for a few seconds, Levi simply stands there, broom in hand.

He wonders briefly how Eren knew, last night, that he would feel this way. 

“Find that piece of shit. I’ll get to Zeke.” 

They nod, disappearing from his doorway within a matter of seconds. 

Relief, tainted by the returning hostility that he’s still not used to, flushes inside of his chest. He honestly couldn’t say if he regrets it or not. 

With that thought resounding inside his mind, he grabs his gear and follows Hanji down into the growing commotion he can hear below. 

Somewhere inside of him, a weight lifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm. thoughts?

**Author's Note:**

> all + any comments give me will to live


End file.
